2 ms·

Sure, but it still means that the OS has to decide who is allowed to do it and to what extent. Sophisticated worms like Stuxnet would be much harder with strict

Sure, but it still means that the OS has to decide who is allowed to do it and to what extent. Sophisticated worms like Stuxnet would be much harder with strict W^X for example, since CVE-2010-2568 and the like would be much harder to execute.

orf 1mo ago
> Sure, but it still means that the OS has to decide who is allowed to do it and to what extent It has to do that anyway?
- asdfsa32 1mo ago
  Only if it wants to allow Writable Memory to become Executable, or basically, allow JIT.
  - orf 1mo ago
    How do you propose preventing that without a check?
pjmlp 1mo ago
Signed binaries with the proper assigned OS capabilities.
- asdfsa32 1mo ago
  Yes, but with JIT, you can't really verify what the application does upfront. That is the entire point.
  - deleted 1mo ago
    [deleted]
  - pjmlp 1mo ago
    Capabilities are a way to control that, and the point being that only responsible proven applications get the certificate, hence how it all goes on iOS.
    - asdfsa32 1mo ago
      You're making the assumption that "responsible" is something provable, but that is not the case, it is specially not easy to prove software is secure from tampering its behaviour.
      - pjmlp 1mo ago
        For that there is bytecode verification as intermediate step, and if you want to go crazy with security, hardware memory tagging with capabilities. Which at this point most companies would rather save money and forbid JIT altogether. Note that mainframes and micros have JIT environments that aren't at the same safety level as regular desktop PCs. For example, https://medium.com/@dhemanthc/ibm-i-architecture-how-timi-and-slic-enable-hardware-independence-82aea3f2dae3 https://medium.com/@dhemanthc/ibm-i-architecture-how-timi-an...