4 ms·

Very curious to hear your take on OpenSSL's Heartbleed bug and would you avoid it if you were the maintainer.

infamouscow 5y ago
Other classes of bugs will take the place of memory safety bugs. For example, I don't think the recent Log4j exploit is a memory safety bug, but could be wrong.
- zbentley 5y ago
  Without weighing in on Rust specifically, that's a fallacy, though I'm unsure of the formal name of it: "any solution that doesn't solve all problems is equivalent to the status quo". Nobody is claiming all bugs will go away. But the claim that new classes of bugs will manifest specifically to take the place of memory safety bugs is extraordinary and needs justification. It's a bit like going into the wilderness and packing survival gear: the argument "you don't need a warm jacket, because if you get lost the starvation will kill you even if the frostbite doesn't" doesn't hold up.
  - jhatemyjob 5y ago
    When you use simple metaphors to describe complicated politics in software development, that's when you lost the argument
- pdimitar 5y ago
  Until that day we should make sure to eliminate the class of bugs that's #1 in all security problems -- namely buffer [over|under]flows. I'd be happy to hear this statistic has shifted towards the next #1 problem. But we're not there yet.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  The problem is behavioral scope: bugs will always exist, but there is no particular reason for a buffer overflow to allow someone to run arbitrary code on my computer. It should, at the absolute worst, cause an uncontrolled program termination.
rastignack 5y ago
Very curious to hear your suggestion on a native rust library with openssl’s functionality. Hint: there is none.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  Not on topic though, not sure why you're bringing it up. The topic was: "C is fine". No, it really isn't.
  - rastignack 5y ago
    You picked as an example a library without any safe alternative in rust. Used by a whole lot of rust projects dealing with tls. It’s ironic.
    - pdimitar 5y ago
      You call a "gradual migration path strategy" ironic? You do you, I suppose.
      - rastignack 5y ago
        I call it a slow development pace caused by usability issues.

Other classes of bugs will take the place of memory safety bugs. For example, I don't think the recent Log4j exploit is a memory safety bug, but could be wrong.

zbentley 5y ago
Without weighing in on Rust specifically, that's a fallacy, though I'm unsure of the formal name of it: "any solution that doesn't solve all problems is equivalent to the status quo". Nobody is claiming all bugs will go away. But the claim that new classes of bugs will manifest specifically to take the place of memory safety bugs is extraordinary and needs justification. It's a bit like going into the wilderness and packing survival gear: the argument "you don't need a warm jacket, because if you get lost the starvation will kill you even if the frostbite doesn't" doesn't hold up.
- jhatemyjob 5y ago
  When you use simple metaphors to describe complicated politics in software development, that's when you lost the argument
pdimitar 5y ago
Until that day we should make sure to eliminate the class of bugs that's #1 in all security problems -- namely buffer [over|under]flows. I'd be happy to hear this statistic has shifted towards the next #1 problem. But we're not there yet.
woodruffw 5y ago
The problem is behavioral scope: bugs will always exist, but there is no particular reason for a buffer overflow to allow someone to run arbitrary code on my computer. It should, at the absolute worst, cause an uncontrolled program termination.

rastignack 5y ago

Very curious to hear your suggestion on a native rust library with openssl’s functionality. Hint: there is none.

pdimitar 5y ago
Not on topic though, not sure why you're bringing it up. The topic was: "C is fine". No, it really isn't.
- rastignack 5y ago
  You picked as an example a library without any safe alternative in rust. Used by a whole lot of rust projects dealing with tls. It’s ironic.
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    You call a "gradual migration path strategy" ironic? You do you, I suppose.
    - rastignack 5y ago
      I call it a slow development pace caused by usability issues.