full-disclosure - Coding securely, was Linux (in)security

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From: ben at algroup.co.uk (Ben Laurie)
Subject: Coding securely, was Linux (in)security

Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu wrote:

> On Tue, 28 Oct 2003 17:44:55 +1300, Steve Wray <steve.wray@...adise.net.nz>  said:
> 
> 
>>Is it beyond all possibility that there exist languages in which
>>the very reverse is true? ie Languages in which one would have to
>>reimplement data types and so forth in order to be able to write
>>insecure code?
>>
>>Can there exist such a language?? I reckon so.
> 
> 
> No.
> 
> All programming languages that are Turing-complete (basically, anything that
> has a conditional loop) are prone to the Turing Halting Problem.
> 
> In other words, you can't prevent DoS-via-infinite-loop based on input.

Duh. That's a complete misunderstanding of the halting problem - which
is, in essence, that you can't write a program which can predict, in
general, whether another program will halt. Its perfectly possible to
write programs that are guaranteed to halt.

Cheers,

Ben.

-- 
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