John Steven wrote: > I'm not sure there's any value in discussing this minutia further, but here > goes: > We'll let the moderator decide that :)
> 1) Crispin, I think you've nailed one thing. The continuum from: > > Architecture --> Design --> Low-level Design --> (to) Implementation > > is a blurry one, and certainly slippery as you move from 'left' to 'right'. > Cool. > But, we all should understand that there's commensurate blur in our analysis > techniques (aka architecture and code review) to assure that as we sweep > over software that we uncover both bugs and architectural flaws. > Also agreed. > 2) Flaws are different in important ways bugs when it comes to presentation, > prioritization, and mitigation. Let's explore by physical analog first. > I disagree with the word usage. To me, "bug" and "flaw" are exactly synonyms. The distinction being drawn here is between "implementation flaws" vs. "design flaws". You are just creating confusing jargon to claim that "flaw" is somehow more abstract than "bug". Flaw ::= defect ::= bug. A vulnerability is a special subset of flaws/defects/bugs that has the property of being exploitable. > I nearly fell through one of my consultant's tables as I leaned on it this > morning. We explored: "Bug or flaw?". > The wording issue aside, at the implementation level you try to code/implement to prevent flaws, by doing things such as using higher quality steel (for bolts) and good coding practices (for software). At the design level, you try to design so as to *mask* flaws by avoiding single points of failure, doing things such as using 2 bolts (for tables) and using access controls to limit privilege escalation (for software). Crispin -- Crispin Cowan, Ph.D. http://crispincowan.com/~crispin/ Director of Software Engineering, Novell http://novell.com Olympic Games: The Bi-Annual Festival of Corruption _______________________________________________ Secure Coding mailing list (SC-L) SC-L@securecoding.org List information, subscriptions, etc - http://krvw.com/mailman/listinfo/sc-l List charter available at - http://www.securecoding.org/list/charter.php
