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Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 20:11:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David A. Wheeler" <dwheeler@...eeler.com>
To: "oss-security" <oss-security@...ts.openwall.com>
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Shellshock and beyond
On Wed, 8 Oct 2014 14:53:44 -0700, Tracy Reed <treed@...raviolet.org> wrote:
> While it is too late for our hardware etc. perhaps strong type systems such as
> found in Haskell can help here?
No. At least not in the sense of totally separating data and code.
It's trivial to implement a language (say Lisp) inside Haskell,
and then hand data to that implementation to be executed.
That does not make Haskell *bad*; you can implement an interpreter
in any Turing-complete language. And it's absurd to say "NEVER
mix data and code" - it's sometimes the right approach to use.
But mixing code with data is probably an *overused* approach,
given the risks that come with it.
We need to help developers know what is safe, and what is less safe.
Then they can avoid easily-avoided problems, and know when they have
extra work to do.
--- David A. Wheeler
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