Security researchers say JPEG virus imminent

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Does anyone else remember when "CODE" and "DATA" used to be separate?

Years ago, long before there x86s and DOS, there used to be concepts in computer architecture called "CODE" and "DATA". One was machine-executable instructions and the other was the data, both internally- and externally-generated that the computer worked upon.

And the computers had memory management units that were sufficiently powerful that CODE never accidentally mingled with DATA nor vice-versa, even when DATA was stored in automatic variables on the stack.

Oh, you could probably crash a machine using a buffer-overflow exploit, but you couldn't interpose your own CODE by inserting it into DATA, no matter how hard you tried, so it was well-nigh impossible for a buffer-overflow exploit to hijack a machine and run its own malware CODE.

Maybe we need to return to those ancient days when computers and their programs were designed by people who understood how to do things securely, from the very bottom of the machine architecture to the very top of the application? And who understood what was CODE and what was DATA, and what the difference between them was?

Posted by: Atlant   Posted on: 09/29/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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