On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 5:28 PM, Thomas Lord <[email protected]> wrote: > Suffice it to say that I think language > design is the absolute wrong place to > address computer security that way. > > Language design problems have enough > on their plate and their are more direct > ways to address security problems. > > So, I don't care so much about "attackers" > of the sort about which you quote a comment.
Well said! > > -t > > > On Mon, 2009-03-23 at 19:37 -0400, John Cowan wrote: >> Thomas Lord scripsit: >> >> > The freedom of an implementation to go either >> > way on that point is a good reflection of the >> > fact that neither way is obviously better than >> > the other *and* it is easy for programs to not >> > rely on one way or the other. >> > >> > Changing the language to force one choice is >> > just arbitrary. It adds an implementation burden. >> > It punts on the question of which choice is better. >> >> I'll just quote here from an email on the ECMAscript 3.1 mailing list >> <https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/es3.x-discuss/2009-March/001183.html> >> not necessarily because I agree with it, but so that the opposing >> point of view is recognized: >> >> > Conventional developers seek only functionality, and stay away from >> > edge conditions. Attackers seek opportunities in edge conditions. So >> > defenders must reason about the limits on the damage that might be >> > caused by these edge conditions. >> > >> > Put another way, conventional developers must code to the intersection >> > semantics of the platforms in question, since a correct program must >> > work across all these platforms. Attackers can seek opportunities in >> > the union semantics, since an attack that works on any platform is >> > still a successful attack. More deterministic specs narrow the gap >> > between these two. >> > > > _______________________________________________ > r6rs-discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.r6rs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/r6rs-discuss > _______________________________________________ r6rs-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.r6rs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/r6rs-discuss
