Re: [Full-Disclosure] Coding securely, was Linux (in)security

[Ben Laurie <ben@algroup.co.uk>]

Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:

> On Tue, 28 Oct 2003 17:44:55 +1300, Steve Wray <steve.wray@paradise.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.

-- 
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


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