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> 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 i
by seanwilson 10y ago
> 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.
This reasoning doesn't make sense. Use a language that makes a bunch of security flaws impossible (barring OS and compiler bugs anyway) so that you can concentrate properly on the possible security flaws left. Why deliberately make life hard for yourself if there are other language choices (assuming there are other choices to C in what you're doing)?
Even the best developers make mistakes. When you're picking your stack for security sensitive work you should be picking the stack that minimises the chance of mistakes and the impact of those mistakes. C is at high risk of making mistakes and those mistakes have a high chance of being exploitable.
- banachtarski 10y ago> Use a language that makes a bunch of security flaws impossible The implicit assumption here is that the language isn't at the same time introducing a number of other vulnerabilities. Is there a language you would like to suggest?
- chrismonsanto 10y ago"Actually, more static analysis makes things less secure" That is a preposterous argument.
- autognosis 10y agoI agree. But who are you talking to? I didn't see that argument made.
- banachtarski 10y agoCome again?
- seanwilson 10y agoI'd wager the vast, vast majority of Java, Python and OCaml projects would have significantly less security exploits compared to an equivalent C project. Simply making buffer overflows impossible (as much as they can be) takes a huge burden away from you.