[Cryptography] "NSA-linked Cisco exploit poses bigger threat than previously thought"

[Steven M. Bellovin]

On 24 Aug 2016, at 2:05, Ron Garret wrote:

>
> Because of these constraints, it is not possible to write safe C in a 
> way that is “natural” to the language.  You have to put a safe 
> layer on top of the native language.  That safe layer requires the 
> programmer to adhere to some discipline in order not to undermine the 
> safety.  But there is no standard on how to implement a safe layer, 
> only different and mutually incompatible conventions.

This is the issue: C makes it hard to do the right thing.  Sure, good 
programmers will expend the extra effort to get it right -- Dave Presto 
wrote a safe string library for his upas mailer in the mid-1908s, 
*before* the Morris Worm.  I asked him about that once: "I didn't think 
I could get it right any other way."  But the fact that everyone else 
has had to roll their own illustrates the problem.

Sure, Java isn't a panacea.  But it does solve certain problems very 
well.