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Speaking as the author of the work, most of _this post_ is satire meant to make you think about the existing security boundaries involved in privilege escalatio

by xena 4y ago

Speaking as the author of the work, most of _this post_ is satire meant to make you think about the existing security boundaries involved in privilege escalation. It is a false problem. The part about being annoyed that sudo is still written in C is coming from a sense of exasperation that there's still more predictable memory safety bugs involved with sudo because it's still written in C. The comment about python-cryptography failing to move to Rust because of random Gentoo uses holding it back was from a sense of exasperation that we can't have "nice things". I'm tired of having to emergency patch everything because we as an industry can't make our fundamental security tools _measurably safer_ with languages like Rust. I am a lot more serious in my other posts (such as this one: https://xeiaso.net/blog/2022-media https://xeiaso.net/blog/2022-media or this one: https://xeiaso.net/blog/hlang-nguh https://xeiaso.net/blog/hlang-nguh), but sometimes I have to write satirical things otherwise people won't get the point. Believe what you want though.

hot_gril 4y ago
I feel that where I work. I'm outnumbered in wanting to write web servers with high-level, non-performance-sensitive business logic in something other than C++. We keep having memory safety problems, but more importantly, it's really slow to develop this way and doesn't match the skillset we're hiring. However, these people are being paid. The common reason our most senior engineers tell me isn't even that it's too late to switch, it's that "C++ is perfectly fine as long as you use it right" and "it doesn't matter what the outside world uses" and "performance."
archgoon 4y ago
[dead]
ilyt 4y ago
[flagged]
- hot_gril 4y ago
  Bro chill
  - ilyt 4y ago
    Nope. I'm tired of people that can only yap their mouth without doing anything
    - hot_gril 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - ilyt 4y ago
        that did 0.1% of what users use it for, and for a joke. Did you not read the article ? Maybe if you did you'd understand my reaction.
xena 4y ago
Update: after some feedback from a trusted advisor I have rephrased this conversation snippet: https://xeiaso.net/blog/%F0%9F%A5%BA#:~:text=A%20prior%20version%20of%20this%20conversation%20snippet%20was%20badly%20phrased.%20You%20are%20reading%20an%20edited%20version%20in%20case%20this%20is%20relevant%20in%20internet%20comment%20arguments https://xeiaso.net/blog/%F0%9F%A5%BA#:~:text=A%20prior%20ver.... Here is the new version (same links): > <Cadey> I don't know about the code quality standards of the sudo project, but overall I don't see them doing any concerted effort to try to migrate away from C and there are frequent security vulnerabilities that result in attackers getting root access anyways. I really wish the industry as a whole would take languages like Rust a bit more seriously and start actually moving towards programs being safer to use because security vulnerabilities in core infrastructure result in emergency patches. It was disappointing to see an attempt at using Rust in an important Python library torpedoed by users of obscure architectures not supporting Rust. Maybe the solution there is to use WebAssembly as a compile target instead of making everything be native code. I wouldn't wish hppa's reverse stack growth on anyone trying to write a compiler though.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  FWIW as one of the original complainers this seems like a perfectly good edit to me. Also the overall article was quite interesting and I think the template is really accessible and fun to read. If I knew there would be a bunch of ancillary complaining this thread, I probably would have kept quiet!
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
The Gentoo folks have packaged https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/app-admin/doas https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/app-admin/doas ( so they appear to be fine with sudo replacements) and https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/sys-apps/ripgrep https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/sys-apps/ripgrep (so rust isn't a problem), so if you'd like to do the work and write a sudo replacement in rust, I'm sure they'd be happy to package it as well.
314 4y ago
The satire came through loud and strong. Perhaps consider that feedback from hn is somewhat biased on the spectrum? I thought the style was a refreshing change.
- xena 4y ago
  I think in my next post about this I'm going to have a giant banner for HN visitors that will block you from reading the article that says "THIS ARTICLE IS SATIRE" just to see how that changes what people say in the comments. I doubt it will have the impact I want though.
  - 314 4y ago
    Those kids would be really upset if they could read.

by xena 4y ago

hot_gril 4y ago

I feel that where I work. I'm outnumbered in wanting to write web servers with high-level, non-performance-sensitive business logic in something other than C++. We keep having memory safety problems, but more importantly, it's really slow to develop this way and doesn't match the skillset we're hiring. However, these people are being paid. The common reason our most senior engineers tell me isn't even that it's too late to switch, it's that "C++ is perfectly fine as long as you use it right" and "it doesn't matter what the outside world uses" and "performance."

archgoon 4y ago

[dead]

ilyt 4y ago

[flagged]

hot_gril 4y ago
Bro chill
- ilyt 4y ago
  Nope. I'm tired of people that can only yap their mouth without doing anything
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - ilyt 4y ago
      that did 0.1% of what users use it for, and for a joke. Did you not read the article ? Maybe if you did you'd understand my reaction.

xena 4y ago

Update: after some feedback from a trusted advisor I have rephrased this conversation snippet: https://xeiaso.net/blog/%F0%9F%A5%BA#:~:text=A%20prior%20version%20of%20this%20conversation%20snippet%20was%20badly%20phrased.%20You%20are%20reading%20an%20edited%20version%20in%20case%20this%20is%20relevant%20in%20internet%20comment%20arguments https://xeiaso.net/blog/%F0%9F%A5%BA#:~:text=A%20prior%20ver.... Here is the new version (same links): > <Cadey> I don't know about the code quality standards of the sudo project, but overall I don't see them doing any concerted effort to try to migrate away from C and there are frequent security vulnerabilities that result in attackers getting root access anyways. I really wish the industry as a whole would take languages like Rust a bit more seriously and start actually moving towards programs being safer to use because security vulnerabilities in core infrastructure result in emergency patches. It was disappointing to see an attempt at using Rust in an important Python library torpedoed by users of obscure architectures not supporting Rust. Maybe the solution there is to use WebAssembly as a compile target instead of making everything be native code. I wouldn't wish hppa's reverse stack growth on anyone trying to write a compiler though.

bee_rider 4y ago
FWIW as one of the original complainers this seems like a perfectly good edit to me. Also the overall article was quite interesting and I think the template is really accessible and fun to read. If I knew there would be a bunch of ancillary complaining this thread, I probably would have kept quiet!

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago

The Gentoo folks have packaged https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/app-admin/doas https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/app-admin/doas ( so they appear to be fine with sudo replacements) and https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/sys-apps/ripgrep https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/sys-apps/ripgrep (so rust isn't a problem), so if you'd like to do the work and write a sudo replacement in rust, I'm sure they'd be happy to package it as well.

314 4y ago

The satire came through loud and strong. Perhaps consider that feedback from hn is somewhat biased on the spectrum? I thought the style was a refreshing change.

xena 4y ago
I think in my next post about this I'm going to have a giant banner for HN visitors that will block you from reading the article that says "THIS ARTICLE IS SATIRE" just to see how that changes what people say in the comments. I doubt it will have the impact I want though.
- 314 4y ago
  Those kids would be really upset if they could read.