12 ms·

What never ends? Low severity memory safety bugs in a large C codebase? Probably not. You may think this is a lot. It's not. This largely appears a lot because

by hannob 10y ago

What never ends? Low severity memory safety bugs in a large C codebase? Probably not. You may think this is a lot. It's not. This largely appears a lot because OpenSSL treats a lot of very low impact issues as vulnerabilities. A lot of other projecs would rather start arguing that this is not exploitable, should never get a CVE etc. This is a good sign. OpenSSL is taking security seriously by treating even low impact things as vulns. More severe stuff still happens, but I'm pretty positive there is a decline in severe issues.

nine_k 10y ago
Exactly. With C, it will effectively never end. Libraries like that would probably benefit most from using a language with strict static analysis, like Rust. Tools Of similar nature for C do exist, but probably they are harder to apply, and likely not free.
- bjourne 10y ago
  It won't end with Rust either since it is so appealing and easy to jump into unsafe territory.
  - mbrock 10y ago
    This kind of resource DoS attack doesn't seem like it's directly related to safe/unsafe. I think you would be just as likely to forget to put a resource limit if you were writing in Haskell.
  - danarmak 10y ago
    Easy is not the same as necessary. At least high-security projects like OpenSSL could enforce a policy of not using unsafe code, and it's easy to validate that there's no unsafe code or that the few known instances are very well vetted.
    - bjourne 10y ago
      You could do the same with C code -- it is getting everyone to follow the policies that is the hard part. Even compiling Rust code in release mode instead of debug removes some essential safety features. Should be clear by now that "policies" just doesn't work, but no, project are repeating the exact same mistake over and over again. :)
      - danarmak 10y ago
        The crucial difference is between a policy, which people can not follow (and you might not catch them), and a language or compiler restriction, which people can't work around without doing something drastic like shelling out to a new process, which you can catch (in a well built language).
        rustywut 10y ago
        But Rust is ugly and C is beautiful. Why would someone want to work in an ugly language all day?
        danarmak 10y ago
        Is the beauty you see in C inseparable from its unsafety? Are the unsafe parts that other languages don't have the most beautiful ones? There's a big difference between arguing for safety and arguing for Rust specifically. Everyone likes some languages and dislikes others. Can you design a safe(r) language that you would consider to be beautiful?
      - rustywut 10y ago
        Your points seem valid, I don't know why you're getting downvoted. Butt hurt Rust lovers I guess?
        sctb 10y ago
        Since this account seems to have been created solely to violate the guidelines with, we've banned it. We're happy to unban accounts if you email hn@ycombinator.com and we believe you'll post only civilly and substantively in the future.
  - Manishearth 10y ago
    > so appealing and easy to jump into unsafe territory. I've almost never seen unnecessary unsafe code being used in Rust. I've seen it very few times for performance, but it's carefully done.
  - rustywut 10y ago
    If Rust is performant, why does it need unsafe code?
- fredmorcos 10y ago
  I hope I don't come across too harsh. Is HN still really up for that argument? Yes, we know the downsides of C. But the upside is that _we know the downsides of C_. Constantly complaining about C isn't going to get anyone anywhere. It's been shown over and over again that secure C coding is possible and doable and feasible and exists in the real world. Some of the most secure software is written in C, and that's not attributed to enough fingers banging at a keyboard over a C program, but because C forces the programmer that _wants_ to write a secure program think about all the issues, the universe and everything. So please, pave the road and show us the safer OpenSSL-rust you have. Until then good luck and thank you for your feedback.
  - jerf 10y ago
    It's not Rust, but: https://golang.org/pkg/crypto/tls/ https://golang.org/pkg/crypto/tls/ I know it says "partial" implementation, but it's quite good even so, and has had everything I need. It doesn't do SSLv2, but nowadays that's more virtue than vice. Erlang has an independent SSL implementation as well; it binds to OpenSSL but as I understand it just uses the heavy-duty math parts, not the protocol parts, which are instead written in Erlang. Non-C SSL implementations in memory-safe languages exist. Note that "but are they as well road-tested" or similar such things would be moving the goal posts. Not necessarily wrong or bad objections, but different objections. Probably nothing, not even the other C implementations, is as well "road tested" as OpenSSL, but, then again, OpenSSL hasn't exactly passed that road testing with flying colors now, has it?
    - fredmorcos 10y ago
      (Just my opinion) I completely agree with everything you point out. The argument I am bringing up is not about implementation, it's about "if they didn't use C, they would have less (security) problems": No. C is the way it is towards secure coding because there are compromises to satisfy other dimensions. <Fancy new language that promises to solve all of C's problems> is either making huge sacrifices in these other dimensions or is at best an experiment. We understand C's weak points so well (due to being widespread, battle tested, really simple, or what have you), that most of the time it's safer (read: more secure) to tread dangerous well-understood territories carefully than uncharted ones only promising to be safe.
- caf 10y ago
  Is the "Severity: High" issue here the kind of thing that would be caught by Rust's static analysis, though? The bug isn't a case where the language rules are broken, but rather a failure to set a reasonable limit on the resource consumption that a client can cause.
- josefx 10y ago
  > Libraries like that would probably benefit most from using a language with strict static analysis, like Rust. Wont help when developers then go out of their way to write a large amount of unsafe code. OpenSSL went out of its way to reimplement the C standard library wrong, making it impossible to use with analysis tools like valgrind or a checked malloc and generally confusing developers. iirc it even used malloc(pop)/ free(push) as a stack to pass data around at some point.
- ninja-wannabe-7 10y ago
  It's too easy to just blame C, it's their slap-dash, design-by-committee kitchen-sink features, lack of process, absense of rigor and generally amateurish "engineering," if it can be called that, of a now critical security framework. Why isn't every release first run through valgrind tools and some commercial C bug-finding tools used by embedded / safety-critical systems and why aren't there proofs of it's correctness? They have and/or could get the money/resources.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dimino 10y ago
OpenSSL considers this a "high" severity issue.

by hannob 10y ago

nine_k 10y ago

Exactly. With C, it will effectively never end. Libraries like that would probably benefit most from using a language with strict static analysis, like Rust. Tools Of similar nature for C do exist, but probably they are harder to apply, and likely not free.

bjourne 10y ago
It won't end with Rust either since it is so appealing and easy to jump into unsafe territory.
- mbrock 10y ago
  This kind of resource DoS attack doesn't seem like it's directly related to safe/unsafe. I think you would be just as likely to forget to put a resource limit if you were writing in Haskell.
- danarmak 10y ago
  Easy is not the same as necessary. At least high-security projects like OpenSSL could enforce a policy of not using unsafe code, and it's easy to validate that there's no unsafe code or that the few known instances are very well vetted.
  - bjourne 10y ago
    You could do the same with C code -- it is getting everyone to follow the policies that is the hard part. Even compiling Rust code in release mode instead of debug removes some essential safety features. Should be clear by now that "policies" just doesn't work, but no, project are repeating the exact same mistake over and over again. :)
    - danarmak 10y ago
      The crucial difference is between a policy, which people can not follow (and you might not catch them), and a language or compiler restriction, which people can't work around without doing something drastic like shelling out to a new process, which you can catch (in a well built language).
      - rustywut 10y ago
        But Rust is ugly and C is beautiful. Why would someone want to work in an ugly language all day?
        danarmak 10y ago
        Is the beauty you see in C inseparable from its unsafety? Are the unsafe parts that other languages don't have the most beautiful ones? There's a big difference between arguing for safety and arguing for Rust specifically. Everyone likes some languages and dislikes others. Can you design a safe(r) language that you would consider to be beautiful?
    - rustywut 10y ago
      Your points seem valid, I don't know why you're getting downvoted. Butt hurt Rust lovers I guess?
      - sctb 10y ago
        Since this account seems to have been created solely to violate the guidelines with, we've banned it. We're happy to unban accounts if you email hn@ycombinator.com and we believe you'll post only civilly and substantively in the future.
- Manishearth 10y ago
  > so appealing and easy to jump into unsafe territory. I've almost never seen unnecessary unsafe code being used in Rust. I've seen it very few times for performance, but it's carefully done.
- rustywut 10y ago
  If Rust is performant, why does it need unsafe code?
fredmorcos 10y ago
I hope I don't come across too harsh. Is HN still really up for that argument? Yes, we know the downsides of C. But the upside is that _we know the downsides of C_. Constantly complaining about C isn't going to get anyone anywhere. It's been shown over and over again that secure C coding is possible and doable and feasible and exists in the real world. Some of the most secure software is written in C, and that's not attributed to enough fingers banging at a keyboard over a C program, but because C forces the programmer that _wants_ to write a secure program think about all the issues, the universe and everything. So please, pave the road and show us the safer OpenSSL-rust you have. Until then good luck and thank you for your feedback.
- jerf 10y ago
  It's not Rust, but: https://golang.org/pkg/crypto/tls/ https://golang.org/pkg/crypto/tls/ I know it says "partial" implementation, but it's quite good even so, and has had everything I need. It doesn't do SSLv2, but nowadays that's more virtue than vice. Erlang has an independent SSL implementation as well; it binds to OpenSSL but as I understand it just uses the heavy-duty math parts, not the protocol parts, which are instead written in Erlang. Non-C SSL implementations in memory-safe languages exist. Note that "but are they as well road-tested" or similar such things would be moving the goal posts. Not necessarily wrong or bad objections, but different objections. Probably nothing, not even the other C implementations, is as well "road tested" as OpenSSL, but, then again, OpenSSL hasn't exactly passed that road testing with flying colors now, has it?
  - fredmorcos 10y ago
    (Just my opinion) I completely agree with everything you point out. The argument I am bringing up is not about implementation, it's about "if they didn't use C, they would have less (security) problems": No. C is the way it is towards secure coding because there are compromises to satisfy other dimensions. <Fancy new language that promises to solve all of C's problems> is either making huge sacrifices in these other dimensions or is at best an experiment. We understand C's weak points so well (due to being widespread, battle tested, really simple, or what have you), that most of the time it's safer (read: more secure) to tread dangerous well-understood territories carefully than uncharted ones only promising to be safe.
caf 10y ago
Is the "Severity: High" issue here the kind of thing that would be caught by Rust's static analysis, though? The bug isn't a case where the language rules are broken, but rather a failure to set a reasonable limit on the resource consumption that a client can cause.
josefx 10y ago
> Libraries like that would probably benefit most from using a language with strict static analysis, like Rust. Wont help when developers then go out of their way to write a large amount of unsafe code. OpenSSL went out of its way to reimplement the C standard library wrong, making it impossible to use with analysis tools like valgrind or a checked malloc and generally confusing developers. iirc it even used malloc(pop)/ free(push) as a stack to pass data around at some point.
ninja-wannabe-7 10y ago
It's too easy to just blame C, it's their slap-dash, design-by-committee kitchen-sink features, lack of process, absense of rigor and generally amateurish "engineering," if it can be called that, of a now critical security framework. Why isn't every release first run through valgrind tools and some commercial C bug-finding tools used by embedded / safety-critical systems and why aren't there proofs of it's correctness? They have and/or could get the money/resources.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

dimino 10y ago

OpenSSL considers this a "high" severity issue.