What is meta? ×

I like this new "about" statement for all tags. It makes them more defined. So what should it say for the [security] tag? I just put "This tag is used for topics relating to attacks against software.", but you might disagree. What are your thoughts?

share|improve this question

3 Answers 3

I think that algorithm types relating to security should be mentioned.

I'm not sure what the broad categories are, maybe things like encryption (hashing, salting...),captchas?, random number generation.... Just 3 or so broad and important categories.

share|improve this answer
+1 i agree to an extent, there is actually a cryptography and encryption and there is a lot of overlap. For instance encryption always relates to cryptography and both always relate to security, but i don't think SO allows us to build such a relation tree.... –  Rook Aug 25 '10 at 22:49

Maybe the tag info page should, as a subset, contain links to the things most likely to interest newbies and people looking for urgent help: Links to the best "So your site's been hacked" type of resources (and if most of the answers to that question are on serverfault - then link there.)

share|improve this answer
+1 i agree there are some panicked posts. –  Rook Aug 25 '10 at 22:48
@Pekka, you mean like an faq, stackoverflow.com/tags/security/faq that is linked below the description? –  waffles Aug 25 '10 at 22:51
@waffles basically yes, but most "my site's been hacked" questions are over on serverfault, and won't turn up in the SO security faq. Those would require some sort of a manually edited list –  Pëkka Aug 25 '10 at 22:55
@Pekka I'm not sure we want to use that space to drive users to other sites, but you do raise an interesting point / concept ... ability to browse another sites questions/answers on the same tag (provided they are close) –  waffles Aug 25 '10 at 23:49
@Pekka ... also I do not think these lists are interesting when mixed ... serverfault.com/tags/security/faq superuser.com/tags/security/faq stackoverflow.com/tags/security/faq –  waffles Aug 25 '10 at 23:54
@waffles i agree to a large extent mainly because it takes a programmer to write a patch. Sure a sys admin can clean up the infection, but he is just going to get hacked again. shrug –  Rook Aug 26 '10 at 0:03

I want to say that there's more to security than just 'attacks', but then when I go through various counter-examples, it ends up being in part related to attacks. It still has slightly the wrong emphasis, so maybe:

  • The security tag is used for questions relating to attacks on software and how write programs to ensure that attacks are not successful.

With, maybe, a caveat that 'recovering from a successful attack is more appropriately discussed on ServerFault or SuperUser'.

share|improve this answer
+1 good suggestion. –  Rook Aug 25 '10 at 22:46

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .