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From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" <rfg@tristatelogic.com>
To: freebsd-security@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: De Raadt + FBSD + OpenSSH + hole?
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1404212324520.32719@pohjola.cksoft.de>
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 14:49:45 -0700
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In message <alpine.BSF.2.00.1404212324520.32719@pohjola.cksoft.de>, 
Christian Kratzer <ck-lists@cksoft.de> wrote:

>On Mon, 21 Apr 2014, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:
>>
>> In message <53546795.9050304@quietfountain.com>,
>> "hcoin" <hcoin@quietfountain.com> wrote:
>>
>>> ... It is for the community to decide whether it is 'worth it'
>>> on a case by case basis given there is no way to prove a program
>>> 'correct' from a security perspective.
>>
>> I guess that I was sick that day in software school.
>>
>> Did I just hear you tell me that I can't prove the following program
>> is "secure"?
>>
>>
>> int
>> main (void)
>> {
>>  return 0;
>> }
>
>in an ideal world you could propably.  The difficulty ist that even
>above seemingly trival snippet of code is run after initialization of
>the c runtime library and some pre processing of argc, argv.
>
>It gets more complex with c++ contstructors run before main.
>
>If gets even more complex the more software components interact in
>wierd and wonderfull ways.


At the risk of stating the obvious...

    Complexity != Impossibility

I think that we need better tools.

But then again, I have always thought that, and undoubtedly always will.


Regards,
rfg