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Yeah, it took reading the entire article to figure out what the site in question is for and what it does that allows regular users to reinstall the kernel on on

Yeah, it took reading the entire article to figure out what the site in question is for and what it does that allows regular users to reinstall the kernel on one of his machines. The first several times I read the term "code evaluator", it never occurred to me that he really meant evaluator as in executing user-supplied code on his server. Holy yikes! Reading the rest of the article, it does seem that he's at least thinking about how to deal with the ramifications of that decision. It certainly takes some boldness to try this at all. Personally I would have got as far as "executing user-supplied code", thought about it a second, shivered at the implications, and picked a different idea to run with.

kranner 16y ago
That blog post is one in a series of ongoing commentary about the site, so I don't usually explain the idea again. I guess it really is confusing out of context. The code evaluation runs in a standalone server. I hope to learn what to block over time against a series of successful exploits. Evaluations that failed to compile/run/return-an-expected-result are marked on another server (on which they are not evaluated in any way) so I can study them later.
- jasonkester 16y ago
  Yeah, like I say, Hats off to you for even trying. Sounds like it will be a fun site to run, since I bet you'll be battling against would-be hackers full time from here on out.
  - kranner 16y ago
    My sarcasm-o-meter flew off the wall. Well, I'm not deterred yet: 1. It may not be an insurmountable problem; see eru's and ambition's suggestions below. 2. There is a real business need for the application, and anything worthwhile can have unforeseen difficulties.
    - jasonkester 16y ago
      No sarcasm intended. (wish there was an HTML tag for <nosarc>). Fun as in intellectually challenging with a constant stream of new baddies to battle.
      - kranner 16y ago
        Thanks very much, in that case. Honestly I get no kicks out of dealing with the bad guys. I'm hoping the combination of [virtual machine quarantine] and [being low profile enough to stay out of the scope of most bad guys] will see me through.

kranner 16y ago

That blog post is one in a series of ongoing commentary about the site, so I don't usually explain the idea again. I guess it really is confusing out of context. The code evaluation runs in a standalone server. I hope to learn what to block over time against a series of successful exploits. Evaluations that failed to compile/run/return-an-expected-result are marked on another server (on which they are not evaluated in any way) so I can study them later.

jasonkester 16y ago
Yeah, like I say, Hats off to you for even trying. Sounds like it will be a fun site to run, since I bet you'll be battling against would-be hackers full time from here on out.
- kranner 16y ago
  My sarcasm-o-meter flew off the wall. Well, I'm not deterred yet: 1. It may not be an insurmountable problem; see eru's and ambition's suggestions below. 2. There is a real business need for the application, and anything worthwhile can have unforeseen difficulties.
  - jasonkester 16y ago
    No sarcasm intended. (wish there was an HTML tag for <nosarc>). Fun as in intellectually challenging with a constant stream of new baddies to battle.
    - kranner 16y ago
      Thanks very much, in that case. Honestly I get no kicks out of dealing with the bad guys. I'm hoping the combination of [virtual machine quarantine] and [being low profile enough to stay out of the scope of most bad guys] will see me through.