4 ms·

Find an error on the Rust runtime and then the whole security collapses down as a house of cards. It's bad to think on security by just using a language.

• lalaithion 4y ago
  I mean, the same is true with the C runtime.
  • hulitu 4y ago
    > I mean, the same is true with the C runtime. My c compiler does not connect to internet during compiling.
    • some_furry 4y ago
      What do you do if a dependent .so isn't found? Do you not have to install said dependency from the Internet and start (at least part of) the compile over?
    • overthrow 4y ago
      Nor does the Rust compiler. Rust's build system, Cargo, does however. And many C build systems do as well, e.g. https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/guide/using-dependencies/index.html#downloading-and-building-from-source-with-fetchcontent https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/guide/using-dependencies...
      • steveklabnik 4y ago
        Optionally. Cargo doesn’t have to connect to the internet, and even has command line switches to fail if it tries to.
        • hulitu 4y ago
          Good to know.
      • hulitu 4y ago
        Thank you for the tip. I shall do ifconfig eth0 down before compiling to avoid such issues.
  • ittan 4y ago
    Isn't "C Runtime" inaccurate? Wouldn't it be the static or dynamic linked libraries for the particular program in question?
    • pjmlp 4y ago
      Nope, what do you think calls into main(), does floating point emulation, handles signals on non UNIX platforms, provides threading support?
      • dahfizz 4y ago
        The term "runtime" is overloaded here. The C runtime is not what people usually mean when they say a language has a runtime. There is a crt.0 "C Runtime" object. This is code that is literally run "at runtime". When you execute a binary, the C runtime is the first thing executed to setup the stack and call main(). This is just a bit of assembly that runs before main(). It shares ~nothing in common with "runtime" languages like Python or Java where the runtime is alive during the whole program's execution. The C run time does not handle floats or threads or anything like that. Software floats are dealt with by the compiler and threading is implemented as its own library (either in userspace or built into the kernel).
        • pjmlp 4y ago
          I guess you can educate Microsoft on that then. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/c-runtime-library/c-run-time-library-reference?view=msvc-170 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/c-runtime-library/c-ru... It doesn't matter what people think, rather the CS point of view of a language runtime is. That library is the runtime. C implementation without the respective runtime is what is called a freestanding implementation as per ISO C.
      • lanstin 4y ago
        Libraries and crt0.o and the like. Libgcc_s ; but it isn’t a runtime in the sense that some magic is doing GC or scheduling for routines. ABI that describes what the assembly should be doing, it isn’t a thing doing stuff.
• smt88 4y ago
  No one is saying they should switch languages and stop all other security work.
• hulitu 4y ago
  No need for errors. Just a compromised package on crates.io. It's funny how rust is praised as secure without any code audit.
  • iknowstuff 4y ago
    Yeah your single header libs from pastebin get so many audits by comparison. https://github.com/RustSec/rustsec/tree/main/cargo-audit https://github.com/RustSec/rustsec/tree/main/cargo-audit https://mozilla.github.io/cargo-vet/ https://mozilla.github.io/cargo-vet/ Besides, every dependency is locked.
  • haswell 4y ago
    Security means many things, and supply chain vulnerabilities are just one of many factors to evaluate when considering languages. Rust improves or eliminates some issues, but that does not imply that other issues are magically solved.
  • fnordpiglet 4y ago
    I don’t think people generally say secure, they say safe. Safe is necessary but insufficient for secure. The existing implementations assume safety by diligence. Rust promises safety by construction. That’s useful. But, to your point, insufficient. People that say secure when they mean safe are just wrong.
• MattPalmer1086 4y ago
  Rust doesn't have a runtime. Nobody is suggesting that a language solves all security issues. It does have much better memory safety than C, which is the cause of the majority of security issues.
  • duped 4y ago
    Rust has a minimal runtime (0), and links to libc by default which brings in the libc runtime (so it's not like C is any better). Except that the Rust runtime is written in Rust, which is nice for memory safety. (0) https://prev.rust-lang.org/en-US/faq.html#does-rust-have-a-runtime https://prev.rust-lang.org/en-US/faq.html#does-rust-have-a-r...
    • MattPalmer1086 4y ago
      Well, opinions in the Rust community clearly differ: "Rust is blazingly fast and memory-efficient: with no runtime or garbage collector" [0] I guess it depends on what you mean by a runtime. Panic handlers and initialisation code is a pretty small runtime. [0] https://www.rust-lang.org/ https://www.rust-lang.org/
• samus 4y ago
  Even if there are error, the impact of each error would not be higher than if it occurred in libc or any other language runtime.