Re: Buffer overflows. was Re: EMERGENCY: new remote root exploit

From: Geoffrey KEATING (geoffkat_private)
Date: Sun Jul 19 1998 - 20:23:42 PDT

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    > Date:         Fri, 17 Jul 1998 15:49:02 -0700
    > From: Craig Spannring <ctsat_private>
    
    > The responses I've gotten can be grouped into the following broad
    > categories-
    >
    >    1)  Life would be good if we eliminated C and we will.
    >    2)  Life would be good if we eliminated C, but we can't.
    >    3)  C is the only language fast enough.
    >    3)  Eliminating buffer overflows is nice, but won't solve most of
    >        the problems.
    >    3)  You can write safe code in C using strncpy, snprintf, et al.
    >    4)  Only morons write code with buffer overflows
    >    5)  Modula-2 and Ada suck and you do you.
    
    You missed one:
    
         5) Modula-2 and Ada are just as insecure if you turn off array
            bounds checking.
    
    The language is not the problem; it's the absence of array bounds
    checking.  There are a number of C compilers that will check your
    bounds for you, there's even a modified gcc that will do this.
    
    --
    Geoff Keating <Geoff.Keatingat_private>
    



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