On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 07:38:30PM -0800, travis+ml-lang...@subspacefield.org wrote: > I am having trouble imagining the case where adding security > boundaries decreases security, except for the case Guthrey implied, > where a layer/module/system relies on another layer/module/system for > a security-relevant decision, and has (worst case > adversary-controlled) choices of same, in which case you get a > "weakest link" security = min-security.
Actually, I take that back: http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500248392/The-diagram-that-scares-the-next-generation-of-banking-IT-professionals The correctness problem is clearly dependent on complexity, but for a given complexity, I'm not convinced that LMC is inherently bad - quite the contrary. We had a word for poorly-modularized code, and that was "spaghetti code". Having everyone write all the software stack doesn't benefit from scrutiny the way a battle-tested library does. My developers are not likely to match the ZeroMQ guy*, especially if they to write an MQ implementation and code something which relies on it (and has a completely different purpose) at the same time. That reduces focus. [*] http://250bpm.com/blog:4 Conversely, for a decision based on other decisions, the correctness calculus is such that the chance that one of them is incorrect (at least for some inputs) increases, due to 1) distribution of quality among the decision software layers 2) "impedance mismatch" & misunderstandings between layers/APIs/contracts 3) bit rot of layers and contracts This is a fascinating case study of same: https://lwn.net/Articles/342330/ TL/DR: it's complicated. Sorry to think out loud. -- http://www.subspacefield.org/~travis/ | if spammer then j...@subspacefield.org "Computer crime, the glamor crime of the 1970s, will become in the 1980s one of the greatest sources of preventable business loss." John M. Carroll, "Computer Security", first edition cover flap, 1977 _______________________________________________ langsec-discuss mailing list langsec-discuss@mail.langsec.org https://mail.langsec.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/langsec-discuss
