Mailing-List: contact harmony-dev-help@incubator.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: harmony-dev@incubator.apache.org
Received-SPF: neutral (asf.osuosl.org: 217.155.92.109 is neither permitted nor
 denied by domain of ben@algroup.co.uk)
Message-ID: <42C577B7.4050102@algroup.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2005 18:04:55 +0100
From: Ben Laurie <ben@algroup.co.uk>
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Windows/20041206)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: harmony-dev@incubator.apache.org
Subject: Re: Security
References: <42C4DF5C.3000508@theory.org>
In-Reply-To: <42C4DF5C.3000508@theory.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Neil Macneale wrote:
> 
> Hello All-
> 
> I've been lurking for awhile and I think the significant discussion 
> about security in the Harmony JVM has been missing. Considering such 
> ideas as hot compiling code and making it executable sets off big alarm 
> bells in my head.
> 
> One huge pitfall in many software projects is putting off security until 
> later. Auditing of code becomes much more difficult as the code base 
> become large. Furthermore, as code grows old, people forget how it works.
> 
> Somehow the java gods have convinced the world that java is secure. But 
> that all relies on a the JVM executing as documented and with no 
> security holes of it's own. The number of ways in which a JVM could open 
> security vulnerabilities in a system is enormous, and this is amplified 
> by the fact that the language it self has a security model which is 
> fairly complex.
> 
> One of the reasons I am in favor of implementing as much of the JVM in 
> Java is that I think it is easier to write secure code in Java than in 
> C/C++. A small core in C/C++ would be reasonable, but from a reviewers 
> standpoint it is more difficult to guarantee that a piece of C code is 
> secure. Generally speaking, of course.
> 
> I'd be happy to read people's code and look for bugs, and I may end up 
> doing this just for yucks. Are other people concerned about this? 
> Thoughts, comments?

I was initially tempted to say "those who do not read the archives are 
doomed to repeat them" but I guess this is (yet another) slightly 
different slant on the debate.

So, it seems to me that when you say its easier to write secure code in 
Java than C what you really mean is that its easier to write code free 
of buffer overflows in Java than C.

I can't think of _any_ other interesting security properties that Java 
has and C lacks. Am I missing something?

Cheers,

Ben.

-- 
 >>>ApacheCon Europe<<<                   http://www.apachecon.com/

http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html       http://www.thebunker.net/

"There is no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go if he
doesn't mind who gets the credit." - Robert Woodruff