4 ms·
My biggest problem with the refusal to be memory safe is the fact that those problems end up becoming my problems when I am forced to use these applications and
by himata4113 3mo ago
My biggest problem with the refusal to be memory safe is the fact that those problems end up becoming my problems when I am forced to use these applications and I have to think about how there might be a zero-click zero-day that uses an overflow in some random codec. Not as a software developer, but a regular person I want my application to be written in rust or at least use fil-c at bare minimum.
Now as a software developer I feel like this is even more important because I use libraries maintained by thousands of other developers that might also use applications that have these exploits which get their systems compromised pushing malware to thousands of other developers which end up compromising even more libraries.
I believe that memory safety should be the standard for software that thousands if not millions rely on and that it shouldn't be some political issue of X is better, Y is that, Z is something else.
But then again, social engineering is the primary source of malware spread so I don't know.
- consumer451 3mo agoIt seems to me that memory safety might be the difference between the software engineering and Software Engineering. As in, an actual Engineering discipline. However, I should probably pipe down, as I would not call myself either one.
- himata4113 3mo agoThere are too many opensource projects that show that even with good engineering discipline humans are flawed creatures. Memory safety is just little thing that makes sure that when you write code at 4am that it will not leak memory via trivial mistakes such as forgetting to free something, freeing something twice or passing a freed pointer. I believe AI agents shine here the most because the they do not get tired and are getting pretty damn predictable.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- inigyou 3mo agoHow many bugs in qmail though?
- himata4113 3mo agoIt had one bad cve it seems, but that's exactly what I mean. It only takes one mistake, of course you can learn and never make those mistakes again, however, that is an unrealistic expectation in software that receives hundreds of feature updates a year especially when it comes to core applications as basic as communication when it wants to support image previews, reels and whatnot.
- Brian_K_White 3mo agoThere will always be one, so "it only takes one" is meaningless and invalid. That leaves less is better than more, and any form of less is as good as any other form of less.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- inigyou 3mo agoSome Rust programs also had RCE CVEs.
- Ygg2 3mo agoSome is doing heavy misrepresentation. Latest batch of LLM's Linux had 423 vulnerabilities. Out of which 10 were Rust*. Would you prefer more or less CVEs? But it's like seat belt analogy. It's a helper not a panacea. * Granted Rust isn't in the entire kernel yet. D
- inigyou 3mo agoThat sounds like Linux has more vulnerabilities per line of Rust code than line of C code, given the language ratio...
- dns_snek 3mo ago> memory safety might be the difference between the software engineering and Software Engineering. As in, an actual Engineering discipline. I wouldn't go that far, what matters is the finished whole. Memory safety of the finished program is a critical factor and using a memory safe language makes it easier to achieve that goal. However simply using a memory safe language doesn't make you a "Software Engineer" any more than using a certified I-beam makes someone a "Civil Engineer". What matters is that the finished structure/program meets the explicit and implicit requirements of safety, functionality, durability, cost, etc. Not to mention that complex reliable systems are usually engineered out of much less reliable components.
- inigyou 3mo agoOverall safety matters. Memory safety is just one factor. Log4Shell happened in Java, a GC language without pointer arithmetic.
- Ygg2 3mo agoWith Fil-C and Rust the memory safety shouldn't even be discussed. It should be the bare minimum. Presence of worse bugs won't make memory bugs disappear.
- pjmlp 3mo agoUsing seat belts is just one factor. People still die while wearing one, so it should not be compulsory. Is how this kind of arguments always get received by security folks.
- satvikpendem 3mo agoNecessary versus sufficient condition, as they say in philosophy.
- goalieca 3mo agoThere are engineering standards where dynamic allocation and especially garbage collectors are banned. C is actually a perfectly approved language in these cases.
- NBJack 3mo agoIf as a user you're willing to pay these library/application owners and premium to do so, by all means; this is a reasonable demand. But short of a massive campaign to educate and change minds, I can't see the average user caring enough.
- himata4113 3mo agoMy biggest gripe honestly is businesses rather than any particular opensource project, opensource projects can often get away with these issues getting caught by the many eyes looking at them before they ever make it to mainline.
- inigyou 3mo agoBut they usually don't? heartbleed should have put that idea to rest once and for all. The many eyes don't exist.
- userbinator 3mo agoYou will never change my mind.
- benj111 3mo agoSo you have a dogmatic belief, not based on evidence then.
- userbinator 3mo agoThe evidence is clear, "safety" paranoia is leading to increasing authoritarianism.
- ssokolow 2mo agoBy that simplistic logic, we should ban all seatbelts and airbags because they cause authoritarianism.
- uecker 3mo agoAs a user you should be far more worried about running up-to-date software and supply chain risks rather than zero-days related to memory safety.
- naasking 3mo agoYou wouldn't have to worry so much about running up to date software if memory safety were pervasive.
- uecker 3mo agoThis is wrong as there are many other safety issues to worry about.
- inigyou 3mo agoBut memory safety is one of the big ones.
- uecker 3mo agoMost people I know that had security incidents did not have this because of memory safety issues. But it does not matter, even without memory safety issues out of the picture, you would need to update your software and be wary of supply chain attacks. (Actually, I can't remember a single incident where somebody I knew was directly affected by a memory safety issue)
- Pooge 3mo ago> I can't remember a single incident where somebody I knew was directly affected by a memory safety issue That doesn't mean the issue is nonexistent. See this article by Microsoft that shows the percentages of fixed CVEs that are related to memory safety.[1] [1]: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/msrc/blog/2019/07/we-need-a-safer-systems-programming-language https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/msrc/blog/2019/07/we-need-a-...