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   Falcon Darkstar (falcon@mastodon.falconk.rocks)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Feb-2024 17:37:26 JST Falcon Darkstar

   Experience being my guide, where there is vulnerable code, there is nearly always one of these conditions in the developer team:
   - Cannot explain the code's intent in the vulnerable case
   - Does not know why legacy code exists or who owns it
   - Is unaware of requirements imposed by the platform
   - Did not intentionally incorporate the vulnerable functionality
   - Is unaware the vulnerable case is implemented

   By the way, memory safety is not even slightly the focus of these things.

   • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Falcon Darkstar (falcon@mastodon.falconk.rocks)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Feb-2024 17:38:03 JST Falcon Darkstar

     in reply to

     What I take from this:
     - Developers must take ownership of code, understand it, and document it
     - Platforms must rely on developers to do the right thing less frequently and remind developers (with warnings) more frequently
     - Requirements analysis is an ongoing process
     - We should build simpler code that is more easily understood, which also means making code more concrete and platforms more explicit

     Notice how none of this is about which language to write in.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: repeated this.
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     Falcon Darkstar (falcon@mastodon.falconk.rocks)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Feb-2024 17:38:18 JST Falcon Darkstar

     in reply to

     To make it a primary concern to use a memory-safe language repeats the mistakes of 4PLs, Java, and so forth. No programming language can save you from confusing, obscure code that nobody owns, or from a lack of comprehensible requirements, or from a platform where you have to remember to consistently do a bunch of specific logical operations.

     The problem is not unchecked native code, it's (probably) you! And the way you were taught to code, and the values you hold about what makes code good!

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Falcon Darkstar (falcon@mastodon.falconk.rocks)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Feb-2024 17:39:26 JST Falcon Darkstar

     in reply to

     For greater clarity, the problem is not that you as a developer are lazy. It is that you as a developer likely spend time doing things that do not help make code secure, and things that actively make security harder, because you are part of a software development culture that continuously reinforces that certain things (high levels of abstraction, generated code, hidden functionality, pedanticness) are in fact good.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.