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Murph - you're stuck in the 80s

The simplest programming statement of the lot is the GOTO. It is also the most dangerous because you can do *anything* with it. You can cross loops, functions, procedures, etc and corrupt return stacks and so forth. That is why it is so dangerous - because it is *so* easy to use.

The harder thing is getting a programmer to be disciplined enough to use it correctly in all instances.


"I found it to be a fairly common opinion with many writers claiming that languages like Java (and therefore C#) make it easy to write safe code"

That should be *safer* code, not safe code.


while cheerfully referring to the insecurity of things like pointer usage in C as if these were real language issues - - which they?re not

Oh yes they are. The pointer is C's achilles heel because, like the GOTO, there are no restrictions on what the programmer can do with it.


"C rely on binary executables generated by compilers that can themselves introduce dangerous generalisations"

Faulty compilers are a risk for any language


"What makes a Java application harder to attack isn?t a language intrinsic but the addition of a software layer; or sand box"

Wrong again Murph. What make Java harder to attack than C is the factor that the code generates less vulnerabilities. The lack of pointers in Java, the lack of the GOTO statement, the use of classes and libraries of proven code, the enforcement of try...catch blocks - these are what makes Java's code safer than C's code.

C's standard library functions are vulnerable to buffer overflow attacks, particularly something as innocuous as strcpy. It's only copying a string - and it's dangerous! That fact that Java stops you "falling off the end" of a string eliminates a whole raft of possible errors.

Posted by: bportlock   Posted on: 06/25/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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