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I worked with TIFF pretty extensively, it's a mess but I don't see why a WUFFS TIFF codec can't be fine. What makes you say you need "an actual VM to transcode"

I worked with TIFF pretty extensively, it's a mess but I don't see why a WUFFS TIFF codec can't be fine. What makes you say you need "an actual VM to transcode" a TIFF ?

Joel_Mckay 2y ago
The complex formats of tiff and tga specifications makes it nearly impossible to span all the edge-cases with unit-tests. A VM can be in a known-state snapshot, process pre/post signature logged/compared with a scripted debugger, and binary input/output stripped of non-compliant metadata/blobs at each stage of the pipeline if the process behaves as expected. I've yet to find a better method than Honeypots to sustainably mitigate the complex leaky dependency mess on traditional architectures. It has been my experience that "all software is terrible, but some of it is useful". It may just be my bias, but I see code smell getting worse in recent decades... Have a nice day, =3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCbfMkh940Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCbfMkh940Q
- tialaramex 2y ago
  So, there's actually no particular reason and if somebody cares to write one then yup, TIFF codec in WUFFS would in fact be safer and faster than your uh, approach.
  - Joel_Mckay 2y ago
    One does not rely on the persistent competence of the coders, and will tell you when something has gone wrong. And walking a binary object store to ban problem users is not always necessary... depending what you are doing. Most other approaches makes the same predictable assumptions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases Despite popular belief, shitty design does not usually get better in another language. Rather, people just feel more confident it isn't shit anymore. I have yet to see evidence to the contrary. =3
    - tialaramex 2y ago
      Wait, you believe that somehow one of these approaches doesn't rely on competence from programmers? How do you figure? Have you been imagining that sandboxes are some sort of fairy dust we just stumbled onto one day, supernatural in nature and not, in fact, just software written by people you're hoping are competent and haven't left any holes?
      - Joel_Mckay 2y ago
        The point was... one is testing parser/OS integrity via a debugging interface over an expectation of an unchanging emulated environment state... there is nothing particularly special about the approach. Even Qubes OS and RancherVM is not perfect in this regard friend. Or put another way, the available attack surface of a bare-minimum fixed environment is much easier to auto-audit, than a pile of daily permuted binaries and self-delusion approach. i.e. if it fails to behave in an expected way, or is modified in any way... the host audit process doesn't have to care why or how it is broken to maintain a service queue as the guest is culled. Perhaps I am wrong about exchanging 15% of raw performance for reliability, but things can get complicated with licenses and multiple OS specific platforms. You seem to be getting emotional about this subject, presenting secondary and tertiary straw-man arguments. So I'm going to go eat some Cheese Goldfish crackers... and just agree that your beliefs are interesting. Have a fantastic weekend... =3
        tialaramex 2y ago
        There's nothing special about it, but it doesn't work especially well. This is the strategy that's blown up on Apple twice in recent years and will keep burning them. If you're Matt Godbolt the benefits of sandboxing outweigh the cost because Matt is interested in general purpose software. But WUFFS isn't for that, as its name says it's interested in doing one particular task well. In this deliberately limited domain, WUFFS gets to sidestep Rice's theorem altogether and just prove the software meets the semantic requirements [technically you do the proving, WUFFS just checks your work]. I hope you enjoyed your goldfish crackers but I urge you to use the right tool for the job.

I worked with TIFF pretty extensively, it's a mess but I don't see why a WUFFS TIFF codec can't be fine. What makes you say you need "an actual VM to transcode" a TIFF ?

Joel_Mckay 2y ago

The complex formats of tiff and tga specifications makes it nearly impossible to span all the edge-cases with unit-tests. A VM can be in a known-state snapshot, process pre/post signature logged/compared with a scripted debugger, and binary input/output stripped of non-compliant metadata/blobs at each stage of the pipeline if the process behaves as expected. I've yet to find a better method than Honeypots to sustainably mitigate the complex leaky dependency mess on traditional architectures. It has been my experience that "all software is terrible, but some of it is useful". It may just be my bias, but I see code smell getting worse in recent decades... Have a nice day, =3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCbfMkh940Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCbfMkh940Q

tialaramex 2y ago
So, there's actually no particular reason and if somebody cares to write one then yup, TIFF codec in WUFFS would in fact be safer and faster than your uh, approach.
- Joel_Mckay 2y ago
  One does not rely on the persistent competence of the coders, and will tell you when something has gone wrong. And walking a binary object store to ban problem users is not always necessary... depending what you are doing. Most other approaches makes the same predictable assumptions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases Despite popular belief, shitty design does not usually get better in another language. Rather, people just feel more confident it isn't shit anymore. I have yet to see evidence to the contrary. =3
  - tialaramex 2y ago
    Wait, you believe that somehow one of these approaches doesn't rely on competence from programmers? How do you figure? Have you been imagining that sandboxes are some sort of fairy dust we just stumbled onto one day, supernatural in nature and not, in fact, just software written by people you're hoping are competent and haven't left any holes?
    - Joel_Mckay 2y ago
      The point was... one is testing parser/OS integrity via a debugging interface over an expectation of an unchanging emulated environment state... there is nothing particularly special about the approach. Even Qubes OS and RancherVM is not perfect in this regard friend. Or put another way, the available attack surface of a bare-minimum fixed environment is much easier to auto-audit, than a pile of daily permuted binaries and self-delusion approach. i.e. if it fails to behave in an expected way, or is modified in any way... the host audit process doesn't have to care why or how it is broken to maintain a service queue as the guest is culled. Perhaps I am wrong about exchanging 15% of raw performance for reliability, but things can get complicated with licenses and multiple OS specific platforms. You seem to be getting emotional about this subject, presenting secondary and tertiary straw-man arguments. So I'm going to go eat some Cheese Goldfish crackers... and just agree that your beliefs are interesting. Have a fantastic weekend... =3
      - tialaramex 2y ago
        There's nothing special about it, but it doesn't work especially well. This is the strategy that's blown up on Apple twice in recent years and will keep burning them. If you're Matt Godbolt the benefits of sandboxing outweigh the cost because Matt is interested in general purpose software. But WUFFS isn't for that, as its name says it's interested in doing one particular task well. In this deliberately limited domain, WUFFS gets to sidestep Rice's theorem altogether and just prove the software meets the semantic requirements [technically you do the proving, WUFFS just checks your work]. I hope you enjoyed your goldfish crackers but I urge you to use the right tool for the job.