nanolith

12 ms·

121.
by nanolith 2y ago
I've had differences of opinion with open source developers and maintainers. But, it costs nothing to be polite, especially when they are giving away their work and asking for nothing in return. When differences of opinion are strong e
122.
by nanolith 2y ago
I do firmware work as well. There is something nice about building a 65C02 based cellphone, or a fermentation system controller using a 68010 and a CPLD based MPU. A Z80 fits nicely into this. It's not practical, but it can be an inter
123.
by nanolith 2y ago
Make sure you order appropriate support ICs as well, as some of these are EOL too. I would recommend a Z80 DART, since that is actually useful to work with. As for what to do with them, consider a retro-controller project that you'd ty
124.
by nanolith 2y ago
The good thing is that, for hobbyists anyway, there are so many used and new-old-stock Z80s floating around that the immediate impact of this won't hit for a while. After that, there are plenty of soft core (fpga) Z80 clones, as well a
125.
by nanolith 2y ago
As a counterpoint to this, I went to college in my late twenties. I did this specifically to resolve some gaps in my knowledge regarding higher mathematics instead of getting a degree. It's certainly possible to self-study math, but th
126.
by nanolith 2y ago
Neither bothers me. Both work just fine on older hardware. I don't need cutting edge performance.
127.
by nanolith 2y ago
They tried this. The predecessor for pledge / unveil was systrace, which included a user-controlled policy file. One significant reason that pledge was implemented was because it is possible to disable or mis-configure user-controlled
128.
by nanolith 2y ago
I like the aesthetic of BSDs in general, and what is nice about OpenBSD in particular is that it is opinionated, but the opinions are mostly on point. Documentation is comprehensive, and configuration can be completely derived by reading ma
129.
by nanolith 2y ago
Each of these things can be managed with process. It's not an all-or-nothing strategy. The overall system and application changes in unexpected ways, but as you get lower down the stack, the amount of churn is reduced. Hence, there are
130.
by nanolith 2y ago
Formal specification means building up this specification from theory, and building proofs along the way. Of course, there can always be errors in specification, but this is supposed to be the first place we implement SAT solvers or proof a
131.
by nanolith 2y ago
Dijkstra grappled with these issues. Two classic notes of his are: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD03xx/E... https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/
132.
by nanolith 2y ago
Descent was my favorite FPS in the nineties. It was fun getting a new person to play with us, because they didn't understand that the game was fully 3D, and that we could come at them from any direction. Plenty of Wrath of Khan (2D thi
133.
by nanolith 3y ago
That's a Linux system call, on Linux. We're talking about OpenBSD. The OpenBSD developers aren't likely to design a system call like clone.
134.
by nanolith 3y ago
> I'm assuming you actually never used older systems - syscall/interrupt-based/call gate based is actually the "the facto standard" Actually, my code runs just fine on older versions of Unix, because it uses libc
135.
by nanolith 3y ago
At this point, I think that Intel and AMD have designed processors that are hostile toward security and process isolation. The amount of work required by an OS designer to work around the default insecure and leaky behavior of these process
136.
by nanolith 3y ago
You want to impose your Linux-centric view of ossified syscall ABIs on the world. That's just not reality on any other operating system other than Linux, nor should it be. libc is the standard, but there is nothing that prevents you fr
137.
by nanolith 3y ago
So, your argument essentially boils down to "call it something other than libc". Because, most of the syscall integration in libc has little if anything to do with C. Eh. Whatever. Call it libunix if you prefer. If you want, you c
138.
by nanolith 3y ago
I agree that autotools is often overkill, but I don't think the answer for most project is to force users to have to manually edit Makefiles. Feature detection is a good thing, but tools like CMake or Meson do a better job at this, in
139.
by nanolith 3y ago
For GNU libc, I would agree. But, not all libc implementations are equal. OpenBSD has spent a lot of time sanitizing their libc implementation, and they have even split their static C runtime library to further reduce its footprint. Develop
140.
by nanolith 3y ago
> Bullshit. A stable syscall api reflects a well designed kernel interface. Says who? I certainly wouldn't consider Linux's syscall ABI to be well designed. You know what is well designed? A stable facade that provides minimal
141.
by nanolith 3y ago
I think that it's difficult to quantify whether X is safer than Y. Instead, we should look at what safety measures X or Y have in place, and whether these can be reasonably improved. Certainly, a single comment on a forum would do this
142.
by nanolith 3y ago
I've been following CHERI for years. I'm a fan of runtime mitigations in hardware, better process isolation, and capability models. This couples nicely with an obsession of mine, which is the integration of formal methods into sys
143.
by nanolith 3y ago
A "stable" syscall ABI means that the interface between kernel and userland is ossified, potentially forever. If OpenBSD did this, then many of the security improvements it has made over the years, which has required the deletion
144.
by nanolith 3y ago
This site is often fairly balanced, but I think the author often jumps to conclusions. The pinsyscall feature is one place where many security researchers have jumped to conclusions, because they only see it from their narrow x86 oriented v
145.
by nanolith 3y ago
I don't think that fuzzing and formal methods are opposed. First, formal verification is only as good as the specifications and the extraction / equivalence proofs. Likewise, fuzzing by its very nature never reaches full coverage
146.
by nanolith 3y ago
His Zones of Thought series, especially, A Deepness in the Sky, remain some of my favorite science fiction. This one hits hard.
147.
by nanolith 3y ago
It's not about me , it's about the trauma that my husk causes to loved ones. I'm a firm believer in euthanasia. I should get the choice while I am able to make that choice. If future me had the capacity to choose, future me
148.
by nanolith 3y ago
The consciousness living in my body at that point may very well be happy, but that consciousness would not be me. I'd be gone, except perhaps in rare instances of lucidity. Sure, there is a Ship of Theseus argument to be had here, but
149.
by nanolith 3y ago
Or, someone who would thoroughly test such a system and formally verify it long before use, as it would literally be a life or death thing...
150.
by nanolith 3y ago
It depends on the jurisdiction. A half dozen states now permit assisted suicide in the case of terminal illness. There's also an interesting bit of case law and state statutes that deals with "drug cocktails", which when comb

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