Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security
From: "Gregory A. Gilliss" <ggilliss () netpublishing com>
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 21:44:38 -0800
Basically what I see here is 'the programming language is responsible to keep the programmer from writing insecure code' versus 'the programmer is responsible for keeping the code from acting insecurely'. Or, to put it in more mundane contexts, 'responsibility lies outside of my control' versus 'I am responsible for my actions'. Or, politically, liberal democrat versus conservative republican (USA definitions). Given the limitations of the hardware (and anyone who's ever had to BRS their box understands, for the rest just take my word that the hardware is the reason for the code, way way down deep, HAL and other modern stuff notwithstanding), and given the expansive growth of the medium to include people who would maliciously impact your system given the chance, I think the honest answer to the questions "which should it be" is ... both. Today no one person can know enough to prevent every single little programming glitch. The history of software (and my career, and probably some of yours', thank you very much) has as its foundation men (sorry ladies) who by their very imperfections created code that was imperfect. Yes, it helped when strong typing kept the programmer from overwriting the character with an integer, or visa versa, but BITD assembler programmers did very well without strong typing. So to be true I think the answer is that the language can and should incorporate mechanisms to assist the programmer in writing (a) working, (b) elegant, and (c) secure code. However the programmers should be as well versed in the art and science of programming as possible in order to fully take advantage of the language. Let us remember that the notion of security, in comparison to the notions of (1) fitting the code into available memory, (2) getting the code to run in the alloted time slice, and (3) getting the code to inter-operate with other machines/networks/environments is a relatively young one. AFA the 'C' language bashing, I'll not listen to it any longer. One of my most favorite memories is having breakfast with Dennis Ritchie during BSDcon, and it's thanks to K&R that you're not all writing your insecure open source apps using Bill Gate's evil micro-COBOL or something equally heinous. If you don't like the tool, make like Larry Wall and write your own. We can always use more programming languages %-) G On or about 2003.10.28 17:44:55 +0000, Steve Wray (steve.wray () paradise net nz) said:
Sure they could possibly find other ways to write insecure code, but the issue is not whether its possible; of course its possible. The issue is the relative difficulty of writing insecure code.
<SNIP>
Can there exist such a language?? I reckon so. [huge snip losing all attributions and context]So which makes more sense to you? To convert the world's programmers to a new language? Or to teach them to code securely?Surely, ifwe were to replace C today, they would just find other ways to write insecure code?[snipped out all the rest]
-- Gregory A. Gilliss, CISSP Telephone: 1 650 872 2420 Computer Engineering E-mail: greg () gilliss com Computer Security ICQ: 123710561 Software Development WWW: http://www.gilliss.com/greg/ PGP Key fingerprint 2F 0B 70 AE 5F 8E 71 7A 2D 86 52 BA B7 83 D9 B4 14 0E 8C A3 _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
Current thread:
- Re: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security, (continued)
- Re: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Brett Hutley (Oct 26)
- Off topic programming thread Mortis (Oct 26)
- Re: Off topic programming thread Bill Weiss (Oct 27)
- Re: Off topic programming thread Chris Smith (Oct 27)
- RE: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Paul Schmehl (Oct 26)
- Re: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Bill Royds (Oct 26)
- Re: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Valdis . Kletnieks (Oct 26)
- Re: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Brett Hutley (Oct 26)
- RE: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Chris Eagle (Oct 26)
- RE: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Steve Wray (Oct 27)
- Re: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Gregory A. Gilliss (Oct 27)
- Re: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Valdis . Kletnieks (Oct 28)
- Re: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Gregory Steuck (Oct 28)
- Re: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Valdis . Kletnieks (Oct 29)
- Re: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Ben Laurie (Oct 29)
- Re: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Sebastian Herbst (Oct 29)
- Re: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Valdis . Kletnieks (Oct 29)
- Re: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Sebastian Herbst (Oct 29)
- Re: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Bill Royds (Oct 29)
- RE: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Steve Wray (Oct 29)
- Re: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security Brett Hutley (Oct 29)