6 ms·

Somehow you gotta give it to security researchers for slowly pushing the industry towards formally verified software. How long it is taking to even notice any c

Somehow you gotta give it to security researchers for slowly pushing the industry towards formally verified software. How long it is taking to even notice any change at all is a testament to how awkward (or at least peoples conception of how difficult) it must be to write formally verified software with current methods.

lmm 9y ago
Or a testament to how little the industry actually cares about security once you ask them to actually put their money on the line. Windows Defender was new in windows 10; there is no conceivable justification for using the kind of programming language that leads to this kind of vulnerability. But, here we are.
- cesarb 9y ago
  > Windows Defender was new in windows 10 According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Defender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Defender) it was first released for Windows XP.
  - my123 9y ago
    Yes, as Microsoft Security Essentials.
- davidgrenier 9y ago
  I feel that, for the end-user business at least, security is both a gamble (you may never be targeted at all) and being totally safe seems unreachable therefore stakeholders spend symbolic amount of resources to feel good about themselves. Windows Defender is present on my Win7 installation.
- pjc50 9y ago
  > no conceivable justification for using the kind of programming language that leads to this kind of vulnerability The legacy tail is longer than you think. Microsoft have started moving things towards C#, but generally in order to do things on Windows the only sensible option is C++. Even if you write your app in something else you'll end up having to deal with pre-existing DLLs that have the usual issues. Really the Morris Worm should have been more of a wakeup, but in a world where there's no external liability for insecurity the commercial and market pressure is towards whatever gets the app built and saleable, with security trailing behind.
- my123 9y ago
  Windows Defender was introduced as an antispyware in Windows Vista. Antivirus functionality was initially available separately as a part of Security Essentials, which was merged with Defender for the Windows 8 release.
- dsacco 9y ago
  Windows Defender has been around since Vista (XP, if you include systems it didn't ship with). More important than that nitpick - do you really see no conceivable justification for using C++? Really? None? The entire language is unsuitable for new development? And somehow, you captured this insight which managed to be overlooked by all the engineers working at Microsoft? What do you suggest we do? Gather the whole world, hold hands as one and unite in abandoning the language? Cast it aside for...what, exactly?
  - Analemma_ 9y ago
    Yes, I see no conceivable justification. A program running with maximum privilege that automatically reads every incoming file? Writing such a component in a memory-unsafe language is almost criminal negligence.
  - lmm 9y ago
    > The entire language is unsuitable for new development? Yes. > And somehow, you captured this insight which managed to be overlooked by all the engineers working at Microsoft? Apparently. Astonishing that they didn't, but the fact that they managed to ship this bug is already astonishing, so any explanation of how that happened will also be astonishing. > What do you suggest we do? Gather the whole world, hold hands as one and unite in abandoning the language? Cast it aside for...what, exactly? Mostly OCaml, probably - I guess F# in Microsoft's case. Maybe Rust or Ada in places where we absolutely need non-GC, if any of those turn out to actually exist.
    - youdontknowtho 9y ago
      There really aren't any codebases the size of Linux or Windows written in those languages. I'm not saying that there couldn't be, but there isn't currently. There is also a great deal of effort being put into making C++ more robust. When there finally are large codebases written in Rust, it will be apparent that there are still some of the same issues. I think that I agree with you though that there may not be real cases where GC won't work anymore.
  - sqeaky 9y ago
- GoToRO 9y ago
  It was new for Microsoft. They bought the solution from someone else.

lmm 9y ago

Or a testament to how little the industry actually cares about security once you ask them to actually put their money on the line. Windows Defender was new in windows 10; there is no conceivable justification for using the kind of programming language that leads to this kind of vulnerability. But, here we are.

cesarb 9y ago
> Windows Defender was new in windows 10 According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Defender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Defender) it was first released for Windows XP.
- my123 9y ago
  Yes, as Microsoft Security Essentials.
davidgrenier 9y ago
I feel that, for the end-user business at least, security is both a gamble (you may never be targeted at all) and being totally safe seems unreachable therefore stakeholders spend symbolic amount of resources to feel good about themselves. Windows Defender is present on my Win7 installation.
pjc50 9y ago
> no conceivable justification for using the kind of programming language that leads to this kind of vulnerability The legacy tail is longer than you think. Microsoft have started moving things towards C#, but generally in order to do things on Windows the only sensible option is C++. Even if you write your app in something else you'll end up having to deal with pre-existing DLLs that have the usual issues. Really the Morris Worm should have been more of a wakeup, but in a world where there's no external liability for insecurity the commercial and market pressure is towards whatever gets the app built and saleable, with security trailing behind.
my123 9y ago
Windows Defender was introduced as an antispyware in Windows Vista. Antivirus functionality was initially available separately as a part of Security Essentials, which was merged with Defender for the Windows 8 release.
dsacco 9y ago
Windows Defender has been around since Vista (XP, if you include systems it didn't ship with). More important than that nitpick - do you really see no conceivable justification for using C++? Really? None? The entire language is unsuitable for new development? And somehow, you captured this insight which managed to be overlooked by all the engineers working at Microsoft? What do you suggest we do? Gather the whole world, hold hands as one and unite in abandoning the language? Cast it aside for...what, exactly?
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  Yes, I see no conceivable justification. A program running with maximum privilege that automatically reads every incoming file? Writing such a component in a memory-unsafe language is almost criminal negligence.
- lmm 9y ago
  > The entire language is unsuitable for new development? Yes. > And somehow, you captured this insight which managed to be overlooked by all the engineers working at Microsoft? Apparently. Astonishing that they didn't, but the fact that they managed to ship this bug is already astonishing, so any explanation of how that happened will also be astonishing. > What do you suggest we do? Gather the whole world, hold hands as one and unite in abandoning the language? Cast it aside for...what, exactly? Mostly OCaml, probably - I guess F# in Microsoft's case. Maybe Rust or Ada in places where we absolutely need non-GC, if any of those turn out to actually exist.
  - youdontknowtho 9y ago
    There really aren't any codebases the size of Linux or Windows written in those languages. I'm not saying that there couldn't be, but there isn't currently. There is also a great deal of effort being put into making C++ more robust. When there finally are large codebases written in Rust, it will be apparent that there are still some of the same issues. I think that I agree with you though that there may not be real cases where GC won't work anymore.
- sqeaky 9y ago
GoToRO 9y ago
It was new for Microsoft. They bought the solution from someone else.