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SubjectRe: non exec stack & devfs threads!
On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Meelis Roos wrote:

> DB> First of all, I agree whole heartedly with Mr Torvalds that the anti stack
> DB> execution patch is just a patch to the symptoms and not the underlying
> DB> problem itself. Somebody here, I forget who, mentioned that GCC has an
> DB> option to compile programs with array bounds checking. THIS IS EXACTLY
> DB> THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM!!! If all setuid root programs were compiled
> DB> with this option, this would be a non issue! Please feel free to shoot my
> DB> reasoning if it is false.
>
> There was a discussion on bugtraq obout bounds checking. That made programs
> _very_ slow (AFAIR about 20 times slower sometimes).
> C is not designed to be bounds checking - that's why it's so hard.

20 times as slow?? Who cares.. thats even more tempting to add debugging
code and evict all the bugs in the meantime.. Remember its only setuid
root binaries, and only setuid root binaries that are not trusted. And
only until all the bugs are squished out and execing stacks is a thing of
the past. Compilers are modified to warn of potential problems in code,
or users are made aware of problematic issues.. This is certainly not a
large ask of CRITICAL system functions and intelligent programers..
Surely?

Dave.


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