3 ms·
> 2. "Logically" dangling pointers (safe languages with non-generational indices). This is a logic bug, but not a security problem. Many logic bugs become secu
by beagle3 8y ago
> 2. "Logically" dangling pointers (safe languages with non-generational indices). This is a logic bug, but not a security problem.
Many logic bugs become security issues. This specific one -- by way of TOCTOU races -- is one of the richest sources of security issues in Unix. The proposed "dormant index" solution is likely to generate a lot of these as well.
- kibwen 8y ago> The proposed "dormant index" solution is likely to generate a lot of these as well. What is a dormant index? I've not seen anything like this proposed, or heard the terminology before.
- beagle3 8y agoI borrowed the terminology from ryani’s comment above; it’s the same thing you are discussing iirc, weak reference expressed by an index into a container and some way to identify that container (expressed or implied). I like the “dormant” name because unlike a weak pointer (say, in Java or Python), you can’t use it directly - you have to borrow the actual object to use it; so it lies “dormant” until you wake it up. It’s not (necessarily) weak because there is no automatic destruction once all other references are gone.