Re: The Perils of Pluggability

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Mon, 2005-10-10 at 15:06 +0200, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:

>    > Extensibility is not a synonym of vulnerability.
> 
>    Of COURSE it is!
> 
> Actually, it isn't.  Me extentions to vulnerable program A do not
> affect you.

Counterexamples:

  My hacked system may attack yours.
  My hacked extension may consume resources that impact other users.
  My hacked extension may corrupt my documents. You may read them,
    impacting your behavior. Recent examples include web site hacks
    that generated millions of dollars in payout through stock
    manipulation.

Or don't these count as ways in which I am affected?

What you say *can* be true, but only if the underlying system imposes
proper guards to enforce it.

>    Running code without control where you don't know what the code
>    does isn't vulnerable?
> 
> What code I run is up to me, and it doesn't affect anyone else other
> than me.  This is what freedom means, me being able to do whatever I
> aslong as what I do doesn't infringe on other peoples freedom.

Well, we agree pretty well on the definition of freedom. I would add
"...without their informed and competent consent", but this is merely
refinement.

But we disagree on the rest. I can think of so many counterexamples to
your assertion that I don't know where to begin, because I cannot figure
out which planet you seem to live on. I'm pretty clear, though, that you
don't read any major newspapers. :-)

If what you mean to say is that this kind of isolation is how Hurd
*should* work, then we agree.

shap