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I would not say this is a solved problem - Rust is too young in the industry; let's wait and see. Java claimed it solved all memory-related issues, and some eve

by dig1 6y ago

I would not say this is a solved problem - Rust is too young in the industry; let's wait and see. Java claimed it solved all memory-related issues, and some even stated good security because the programs were executed in VM. Many years later, we saw you could make memory leaks in Java, and you can escape VM. There is no inertia here but an expected outcome. C/C++ programs are often predictable, memory issues are easy to catch, and tooling is top-notch. Good luck with other languages, except maybe with JVM/.NET platforms.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago
> C/C++ programs are often predictable, memory issues are easy to catch They are not. Memory-safety issues continue to impact major C/C++ codebases such as the Linux kernel and Chromium, sometimes manifesting as security vulnerabilities.
- Alupis 6y ago
  I've been around long enough to know, given enough time, we'll find out Rust isn't the panacea to all our language problems - just like what the parent pointed out about Java and it's memory safety promises back in the day. It is indeed quite possible to write memory safe C/C++ code... and it's done every day. You never hear about how memory safe and performant all that code is... you only ever hear about the rare, high profile mistakes. The problems with languages like C++ are more about how bloated it's become. There's 30 ways to do anything in that language, and 24 of them you're not supposed to use anymore! This leads to all kinds of problems as more people touch the code over many years and C++ standards. I'm very interested in seeing Rust mature in this space... if not for memory safety promises, then for it being a "fresh start" for systems programming without all the legacy baggage C++ has.
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    > we'll find out Rust isn't the panacea to all our language problems I don't think anyone is suggesting it will be. It's not about to supplant Ada SPARK, for instance, as Rust is far behind in terms of formal analysis. > just like what the parent pointed out about Java and it's memory safety promises back in the day Java does address the memory-safety issues of C and C++. You can't have a buffer overflow vulnerability in pure Java code. You can't have any kind of undefined behaviour due to memory-management mistakes in your code. You can't double-free, or use-after-free, or deference a pointer to a local variable that has gone out of scope. You can't trigger undefined behaviour through a read-before-write bug in your code. It's possible to have a memory leak in Java, if you retain references to objects for too long, but that won't ever give rise to undefined behaviour. Of course, there can still be bugs in a JVM, but that's another matter. All languages are vulnerable to compiler bugs. Other languages like JavaScript do the same. It's possible to leak memory, but it's never possible to trigger undefined behaviour from JavaScript. That's a vital part of its security model. > It is indeed quite possible to write memory safe C/C++ code... and it's done every day That doesn't sound right. There's a reason I gave the examples of the Linux kernel and Chromium. They're written by highly competent developers, but they still have subtle memory-management bugs. Most C/C++ codebases are written by less competent developers, but are of far less interest to attackers, so it's of less consequence. Their memory-management bugs are likely to go unnoticed forever. I agree it's possible to write C/C++ code without memory-management bugs (there are various formal development systems for C), but it's a significant challenge. I'd hope avionics software, for instance, would be entirely free of such bugs. > You never hear about how memory safe and performant all that code is... you only ever hear about the rare, high profile mistakes. They're not that rare, they're a major source of serious security vulnerabilities, and languages like Safe Rust can close the door on them entirely. > The problems with languages like C++ are more about how bloated it's become. There's 30 ways to do anything in that language, and 24 of them you're not supposed to use anymore! Agreed. C++ is quite a lumbering monster of complexity. Ada also has a reputation for being somewhat bloated, but it's not as far gone as C++. > if not for memory safety promises, then for it being a "fresh start" for systems programming without all the legacy baggage C++ has Keep an eye on Zig, too. Also D and Nim, and perhaps Vala. Also the lesser-known ZZ and Dafny languages, which look very interesting. https://github.com/aep/zz https://github.com/aep/zz https://github.com/dafny-lang/dafny https://github.com/dafny-lang/dafny
  - staticassertion 6y ago
    > just like what the parent pointed out about Java and it's memory safety promises back in the day. I'm kinda confused by this. Java is an extremely popular language and dominated web services for decades. > you only ever hear about the rare, high profile mistakes. It's more like we constantly hear about these mistakes. Rare? What constitutes rare? Monthly CVE reports from every browser vendor? It's just so strange to me that you would say it's rare lol it's just... so wrong? As for memory safe C/C++ code, again, it's just kind of so absurd. Think of how much time and effort goes into testing, fuzzing, and improving C++ code from companies like Microsoft, Google, AWS, etc, and how they're still finding issues all the time. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars a year are spent on this - cutting edge, new research and tooling are developed just for this problem and it's still there. But you're saying it's rare and actually not a problem? How do you reconcile the very public, very frequent issues with this idea? How do you reconcile companies pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into this, still discovering issues, with the idea that someone somewhere is for sure just doing it way better and it's totally memory safe?
    - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
      > Think of how much time and effort goes into testing, fuzzing, and improving C++ code from companies like Microsoft, Google, AWS, etc, and how they're still finding issues all the time. I recently ran across your 2019 comment expanding on this point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19323616 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19323616
      - staticassertion 6y ago
        Years later, same story lol How depressing.
Alupis 6y ago
Not to mention binary size too. The same program written in Rust can be magnitudes larger in binary size[1], which is a complete non-starter for many embedded projects (where a lot of C/C++ code is destined to live). [1] https://dev.to/aakatev/executable-size-rust-go-c-and-c-1bna https://dev.to/aakatev/executable-size-rust-go-c-and-c-1bna
- qw3rty01 6y ago
  It's a bit unfair to use a default hello world program as an argument for why binaries are too large to use in an embedded context, because rust binaries can be made very small with tuning[1][2][3]. [1] https://www.codeslow.com/2019/12/tiny-windows-executable-in-rust.html https://www.codeslow.com/2019/12/tiny-windows-executable-in-... [2] https://github.com/johnthagen/min-sized-rust https://github.com/johnthagen/min-sized-rust [3] https://rust-embedded.github.io/book/unsorted/speed-vs-size.html https://rust-embedded.github.io/book/unsorted/speed-vs-size....
- zozbot234 6y ago
  See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23496107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23496107 which links a number of rather detailed articles discussing Rust binary sizes.
- dthul 6y ago
  It seems like this blog post is not very well thought out. At least the Rust version was compiled in debug mode, binaries were not stripped, the size-optimizing compiler profile was not used and neither was LTO. This repository contains information on how to achieve small Rust binaries: https://github.com/johnthagen/min-sized-rust https://github.com/johnthagen/min-sized-rust
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Some of those are useful, many are absolutely awful from the viewpoint of leaving in debugability.
    - 6y ago
staticassertion 6y ago
I think it's worth noting that what you're referring to - the JVM escapes - are exploited under a completely different threat model where the attacker already has remote code execution. In this model the attacker already can execute code on the victim's host, but the VM attempts to limit what the attacker can do via restricted APIs. It's just a completely different threat.

by dig1 6y ago

MaxBarraclough 6y ago

> C/C++ programs are often predictable, memory issues are easy to catch They are not. Memory-safety issues continue to impact major C/C++ codebases such as the Linux kernel and Chromium, sometimes manifesting as security vulnerabilities.

Alupis 6y ago
I've been around long enough to know, given enough time, we'll find out Rust isn't the panacea to all our language problems - just like what the parent pointed out about Java and it's memory safety promises back in the day. It is indeed quite possible to write memory safe C/C++ code... and it's done every day. You never hear about how memory safe and performant all that code is... you only ever hear about the rare, high profile mistakes. The problems with languages like C++ are more about how bloated it's become. There's 30 ways to do anything in that language, and 24 of them you're not supposed to use anymore! This leads to all kinds of problems as more people touch the code over many years and C++ standards. I'm very interested in seeing Rust mature in this space... if not for memory safety promises, then for it being a "fresh start" for systems programming without all the legacy baggage C++ has.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  > we'll find out Rust isn't the panacea to all our language problems I don't think anyone is suggesting it will be. It's not about to supplant Ada SPARK, for instance, as Rust is far behind in terms of formal analysis. > just like what the parent pointed out about Java and it's memory safety promises back in the day Java does address the memory-safety issues of C and C++. You can't have a buffer overflow vulnerability in pure Java code. You can't have any kind of undefined behaviour due to memory-management mistakes in your code. You can't double-free, or use-after-free, or deference a pointer to a local variable that has gone out of scope. You can't trigger undefined behaviour through a read-before-write bug in your code. It's possible to have a memory leak in Java, if you retain references to objects for too long, but that won't ever give rise to undefined behaviour. Of course, there can still be bugs in a JVM, but that's another matter. All languages are vulnerable to compiler bugs. Other languages like JavaScript do the same. It's possible to leak memory, but it's never possible to trigger undefined behaviour from JavaScript. That's a vital part of its security model. > It is indeed quite possible to write memory safe C/C++ code... and it's done every day That doesn't sound right. There's a reason I gave the examples of the Linux kernel and Chromium. They're written by highly competent developers, but they still have subtle memory-management bugs. Most C/C++ codebases are written by less competent developers, but are of far less interest to attackers, so it's of less consequence. Their memory-management bugs are likely to go unnoticed forever. I agree it's possible to write C/C++ code without memory-management bugs (there are various formal development systems for C), but it's a significant challenge. I'd hope avionics software, for instance, would be entirely free of such bugs. > You never hear about how memory safe and performant all that code is... you only ever hear about the rare, high profile mistakes. They're not that rare, they're a major source of serious security vulnerabilities, and languages like Safe Rust can close the door on them entirely. > The problems with languages like C++ are more about how bloated it's become. There's 30 ways to do anything in that language, and 24 of them you're not supposed to use anymore! Agreed. C++ is quite a lumbering monster of complexity. Ada also has a reputation for being somewhat bloated, but it's not as far gone as C++. > if not for memory safety promises, then for it being a "fresh start" for systems programming without all the legacy baggage C++ has Keep an eye on Zig, too. Also D and Nim, and perhaps Vala. Also the lesser-known ZZ and Dafny languages, which look very interesting. https://github.com/aep/zz https://github.com/aep/zz https://github.com/dafny-lang/dafny https://github.com/dafny-lang/dafny
- staticassertion 6y ago
  > just like what the parent pointed out about Java and it's memory safety promises back in the day. I'm kinda confused by this. Java is an extremely popular language and dominated web services for decades. > you only ever hear about the rare, high profile mistakes. It's more like we constantly hear about these mistakes. Rare? What constitutes rare? Monthly CVE reports from every browser vendor? It's just so strange to me that you would say it's rare lol it's just... so wrong? As for memory safe C/C++ code, again, it's just kind of so absurd. Think of how much time and effort goes into testing, fuzzing, and improving C++ code from companies like Microsoft, Google, AWS, etc, and how they're still finding issues all the time. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars a year are spent on this - cutting edge, new research and tooling are developed just for this problem and it's still there. But you're saying it's rare and actually not a problem? How do you reconcile the very public, very frequent issues with this idea? How do you reconcile companies pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into this, still discovering issues, with the idea that someone somewhere is for sure just doing it way better and it's totally memory safe?
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    > Think of how much time and effort goes into testing, fuzzing, and improving C++ code from companies like Microsoft, Google, AWS, etc, and how they're still finding issues all the time. I recently ran across your 2019 comment expanding on this point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19323616 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19323616
    - staticassertion 6y ago
      Years later, same story lol How depressing.

Alupis 6y ago

Not to mention binary size too. The same program written in Rust can be magnitudes larger in binary size[1], which is a complete non-starter for many embedded projects (where a lot of C/C++ code is destined to live). [1] https://dev.to/aakatev/executable-size-rust-go-c-and-c-1bna https://dev.to/aakatev/executable-size-rust-go-c-and-c-1bna

qw3rty01 6y ago
It's a bit unfair to use a default hello world program as an argument for why binaries are too large to use in an embedded context, because rust binaries can be made very small with tuning[1][2][3]. [1] https://www.codeslow.com/2019/12/tiny-windows-executable-in-rust.html https://www.codeslow.com/2019/12/tiny-windows-executable-in-... [2] https://github.com/johnthagen/min-sized-rust https://github.com/johnthagen/min-sized-rust [3] https://rust-embedded.github.io/book/unsorted/speed-vs-size.html https://rust-embedded.github.io/book/unsorted/speed-vs-size....
zozbot234 6y ago
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23496107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23496107 which links a number of rather detailed articles discussing Rust binary sizes.
dthul 6y ago
It seems like this blog post is not very well thought out. At least the Rust version was compiled in debug mode, binaries were not stripped, the size-optimizing compiler profile was not used and neither was LTO. This repository contains information on how to achieve small Rust binaries: https://github.com/johnthagen/min-sized-rust https://github.com/johnthagen/min-sized-rust
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Some of those are useful, many are absolutely awful from the viewpoint of leaving in debugability.
  - 6y ago

staticassertion 6y ago

I think it's worth noting that what you're referring to - the JVM escapes - are exploited under a completely different threat model where the attacker already has remote code execution. In this model the attacker already can execute code on the victim's host, but the VM attempts to limit what the attacker can do via restricted APIs. It's just a completely different threat.