6 ms·

Great analysis. Theo is always up front on this sort of stuff which is commendable.

by bananas 13y ago

simias 13y ago
Could have done without the final line though, but I guess it's his equivalent of a signature...
- baq 13y ago
  theo's an asshole, but he's quite often right. i don't like his attitude too, but it has to be said that in this particular case, consequences have been - and/or will be - extraordinary.
  - Gigablah 13y ago
    "OpenSSL is not developed by a responsible team" is downright benign compared to "OpenSSL is written by monkeys".
  - caf 13y ago
    Well, really the consequences would have been virtually the same either way, since the number of OpenSSL deployments where the system malloc uses guard pages is a rounding error.
    - Sanddancer 13y ago
      Yes, but because of the caching malloc, the OpenBSD implementations are just as affected as the rest of the world's. Irresponsible software design sucks, plain and simple.
      - caf 13y ago
        It is a stretch to call this irresponsible. Is there any evidence that the OpenBSD people ever drew upstream's attention to this?
    - usefulcat 13y ago
      Not necessarily. It's probably still more likely that the bug would have been discovered sooner, even if only via a relatively small number of crashes.
- kzrdude 13y ago
  No, that's essential, that line is the message. A secure library should be defensive in coding style and implementation, not sloppy. It should have defaults that err on the safe side, not the fast side, if you have to choose.
  - simias 13y ago
    It's a massive open source project that's more than 15 years in the making and supports a massive range of architectures and ever-moving standards. Shit happens, we need to figure out how to make sure it won't happen again at this scale, there's really no need for name calling.
    - kryptiskt 13y ago
      We need to stop have such a fucking accepting attitude about sloppy engineering in security-critical code. People who don't want to be held to a high standard should get out of there and go do something that can't break the internet.
      - mattgreenrocks 13y ago
        This entire thread is eye-opening. It's as if open source gets a pass on almost everything related to quality because it's free and open. The unspoken belief is that a magic person will come along and fix everything in the indeterminate future. Also, the mantra: "all bugs are shallow." If you refuse to understand the reasons for engineering, conceptual integrity, and discipline in writing code that needs to be readable (read: dull and boring), then I don't know what to say.
      - simias 13y ago
        I'm not saying we should accept sloppy engineering in security-critical code, I'm saying that it's pointless to insult people who contribute to free open source projects from the outside. We want to incite more people to audit and contribute to these projects, not the other way around. Insult the engineering, not the engineers. Or, alternatively, don't insult and propose improvements.
- MrBuddyCasino 13y ago
  To quote Ted Dziuba: "Anyone who ever told you that swear words have no place in technical discussion is right. They're right, and sadly, they're part of the problem because they miss the point. The sterile word placement that's supposed to support an argument makes any true motivation indistinguishable from all the hired bullshit. [...] However, when someone starts swearing in technical discussion, showing emotion, that's a strong indicator that I'm about to receive wisdom. Wisdom is earned the hard way, and it is permanent, not like some statistically shaky performance benchmark that we'll all forget about next week." I feel the same - I'd rather have people feeling passionate about their work and use swear words, than work with polite non-personalities that don't give a fuck.
  - spacemanmatt 13y ago
    I absolutely depend on some swearing to draw a clear line between the factual presentation and everything else. I think this is why beer:30 and stepping away from the office with coworkers is important. People matter. The way software makes them feel matters. Code smell and related concerns are best conveyed in profoundly human ways. Fuck it. Say it like you mean it.
  - Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
    Swearing isn't required for passion. Martin Luthor King didn't have an (expletive of choice) dream, he just had a dream. There are plenty of people who care about their work and manage to express that without swearing. Similarly there are plenty of people who swear about stuff who may well be committed but it's highly questionable about what they're committed to and whether it's to the benefit of the project / team. If someone does swear (and as it goes, I'm fine with swearing for emphasis and swear way more than I feel I should) they need to be aware that some people find it offensive and that if they don't moderate their behaviour it may be taken very personally which can result in barriers between colleagues and / or low morale. You can choose to say that that's the person reacting's problem but if you do so you need to be aware of the price that comes with (that they're working in an environment with which they're not completely comfortable which is unlikely to get the best out of them). The alternative is that the swearer moderates themselves (with which they in turn may not be comfortable). Obviously the better you know your colleagues the more leeway you have. If you've built up trust and togetherness overtime you can get away with anything but even then you need to consider what happens when new people join the team. But ultimately this is about people and where it's about people there are no absolutes - what works for one group will be kryptonite for another.
- SixSigma 13y ago
  Theo is such a "character" that his "work" has been incorproated into the plan9 spin-off 9front as a theo (1) specific fortune file. http://man.cat-v.org/9front/1/fortune http://man.cat-v.org/9front/1/fortune
  - bananas 13y ago
    The mg implementation that ships with OpenBSD has a fair few insults in it as well under the command "theo": http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/mg/theo.c?rev=1.133 http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/mg/theo.c?...
  - groovy2shoes 13y ago
    And here's the theo fortune file: https://plan9front.googlecode.com/hg/lib/theo https://plan9front.googlecode.com/hg/lib/theo
- rbanffy 13y ago
  You must be joking. "OpenSSL is not developed by a responsible team" is probably the most benign criticism Theo has ever issued. And he's quite right. This is a class of bug that should not exist or, at least, be restricted to the OSs where "malloc() performance is bad enough" to justify using their own implementation. Memory management is a non-trivial problem.
- mattgreenrocks 13y ago
  The lower you are on the stack, the more you need quality. And the more you need quality, the more likely you are to run into hackers with 'tough love' personalities, because they simply cannot tolerate poor excuses for code. How they express it is a reflection of their character, but they will let you know when you screw up. Theo was extremely tact given the enormous impact of this bug.
tjaerv 13y ago
For the benefit of those who don't know who he is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_de_Raadt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_de_Raadt

Great analysis. Theo is always up front on this sort of stuff which is commendable.

by bananas 13y ago

Great analysis. Theo is always up front on this sort of stuff which is commendable.

simias 13y ago

Could have done without the final line though, but I guess it's his equivalent of a signature...

baq 13y ago
theo's an asshole, but he's quite often right. i don't like his attitude too, but it has to be said that in this particular case, consequences have been - and/or will be - extraordinary.
- Gigablah 13y ago
  "OpenSSL is not developed by a responsible team" is downright benign compared to "OpenSSL is written by monkeys".
- caf 13y ago
  Well, really the consequences would have been virtually the same either way, since the number of OpenSSL deployments where the system malloc uses guard pages is a rounding error.
  - Sanddancer 13y ago
    Yes, but because of the caching malloc, the OpenBSD implementations are just as affected as the rest of the world's. Irresponsible software design sucks, plain and simple.
    - caf 13y ago
      It is a stretch to call this irresponsible. Is there any evidence that the OpenBSD people ever drew upstream's attention to this?
  - usefulcat 13y ago
    Not necessarily. It's probably still more likely that the bug would have been discovered sooner, even if only via a relatively small number of crashes.
kzrdude 13y ago
No, that's essential, that line is the message. A secure library should be defensive in coding style and implementation, not sloppy. It should have defaults that err on the safe side, not the fast side, if you have to choose.
- simias 13y ago
  It's a massive open source project that's more than 15 years in the making and supports a massive range of architectures and ever-moving standards. Shit happens, we need to figure out how to make sure it won't happen again at this scale, there's really no need for name calling.
  - kryptiskt 13y ago
    We need to stop have such a fucking accepting attitude about sloppy engineering in security-critical code. People who don't want to be held to a high standard should get out of there and go do something that can't break the internet.
    - mattgreenrocks 13y ago
      This entire thread is eye-opening. It's as if open source gets a pass on almost everything related to quality because it's free and open. The unspoken belief is that a magic person will come along and fix everything in the indeterminate future. Also, the mantra: "all bugs are shallow." If you refuse to understand the reasons for engineering, conceptual integrity, and discipline in writing code that needs to be readable (read: dull and boring), then I don't know what to say.
    - simias 13y ago
      I'm not saying we should accept sloppy engineering in security-critical code, I'm saying that it's pointless to insult people who contribute to free open source projects from the outside. We want to incite more people to audit and contribute to these projects, not the other way around. Insult the engineering, not the engineers. Or, alternatively, don't insult and propose improvements.
MrBuddyCasino 13y ago
To quote Ted Dziuba: "Anyone who ever told you that swear words have no place in technical discussion is right. They're right, and sadly, they're part of the problem because they miss the point. The sterile word placement that's supposed to support an argument makes any true motivation indistinguishable from all the hired bullshit. [...] However, when someone starts swearing in technical discussion, showing emotion, that's a strong indicator that I'm about to receive wisdom. Wisdom is earned the hard way, and it is permanent, not like some statistically shaky performance benchmark that we'll all forget about next week." I feel the same - I'd rather have people feeling passionate about their work and use swear words, than work with polite non-personalities that don't give a fuck.
- spacemanmatt 13y ago
  I absolutely depend on some swearing to draw a clear line between the factual presentation and everything else. I think this is why beer:30 and stepping away from the office with coworkers is important. People matter. The way software makes them feel matters. Code smell and related concerns are best conveyed in profoundly human ways. Fuck it. Say it like you mean it.
- Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
  Swearing isn't required for passion. Martin Luthor King didn't have an (expletive of choice) dream, he just had a dream. There are plenty of people who care about their work and manage to express that without swearing. Similarly there are plenty of people who swear about stuff who may well be committed but it's highly questionable about what they're committed to and whether it's to the benefit of the project / team. If someone does swear (and as it goes, I'm fine with swearing for emphasis and swear way more than I feel I should) they need to be aware that some people find it offensive and that if they don't moderate their behaviour it may be taken very personally which can result in barriers between colleagues and / or low morale. You can choose to say that that's the person reacting's problem but if you do so you need to be aware of the price that comes with (that they're working in an environment with which they're not completely comfortable which is unlikely to get the best out of them). The alternative is that the swearer moderates themselves (with which they in turn may not be comfortable). Obviously the better you know your colleagues the more leeway you have. If you've built up trust and togetherness overtime you can get away with anything but even then you need to consider what happens when new people join the team. But ultimately this is about people and where it's about people there are no absolutes - what works for one group will be kryptonite for another.
SixSigma 13y ago
Theo is such a "character" that his "work" has been incorproated into the plan9 spin-off 9front as a theo (1) specific fortune file. http://man.cat-v.org/9front/1/fortune http://man.cat-v.org/9front/1/fortune
- bananas 13y ago
  The mg implementation that ships with OpenBSD has a fair few insults in it as well under the command "theo": http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/mg/theo.c?rev=1.133 http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/mg/theo.c?...
- groovy2shoes 13y ago
  And here's the theo fortune file: https://plan9front.googlecode.com/hg/lib/theo https://plan9front.googlecode.com/hg/lib/theo
rbanffy 13y ago
You must be joking. "OpenSSL is not developed by a responsible team" is probably the most benign criticism Theo has ever issued. And he's quite right. This is a class of bug that should not exist or, at least, be restricted to the OSs where "malloc() performance is bad enough" to justify using their own implementation. Memory management is a non-trivial problem.
mattgreenrocks 13y ago
The lower you are on the stack, the more you need quality. And the more you need quality, the more likely you are to run into hackers with 'tough love' personalities, because they simply cannot tolerate poor excuses for code. How they express it is a reflection of their character, but they will let you know when you screw up. Theo was extremely tact given the enormous impact of this bug.

tjaerv 13y ago

For the benefit of those who don't know who he is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_de_Raadt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_de_Raadt