And don't forget about the compiler you will no doubt have to use. Do you trust that?
You might want to read Thompson's classic "reflections on trusting trust". www.acm.org/classics/sep95 All your compilers are belong to us. gem company www.cigital.com podcast www.cigital.com/silverbullet book www.swsec.com -----Original Message----- From: Dana Epp [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thu Jul 20 12:14:54 2006 To: Andrew van der Stock Cc: SC-L@securecoding.org Subject: Re: [SC-L] bumper sticker slogan for secure software > yeah. > but none of this changes the fact that it IS possible to write completely secure code. > -- mic And it IS possible that a man will walk on Mars someday. But its not practical or realistic in the society we live in today. I'm sorry mic, but I have to disagree with you here. It is EXTREMELY difficult to have code be 100% correct if an application has any level of real use or complexity. There will be security defects. The weakest link here is the human factor, and people make mistakes. More importantly, threats are constantly evolving and what you may consider completely secure today may not be tomorrow when a new attack vector is recognized that may attack your software. And unless you wrote every single line of code yourself without calling out to ANY libraries, you cannot rely on the security of other libraries or components that may NOT have the same engineering discipline that you may have on your own code base. Ross Anderson once said that secure software engineering is about building systems to remain dependable in the face of malice, error, or mischance. I think he has something there. If we build systems to maintain confidentiality, integrity and availability, we have the ability to fail gracefully in a manner to recover from unknown or changing problems in our software without being detrimental to the user, or their data. I don't think we should ever stop striving to reach secure coding nirvana. But I also understand that in the real world we are still in our infancy when it comes to secure software as a discipline, and we still have much to learn before we will reach it. Regards, Dana Epp [Microsoft Security MVP] http://silverstr.ufies.org/blog/ _______________________________________________ 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This electronic message transmission contains information that may be confidential or privileged. The information contained herein is intended solely for the recipient and use by any other party is not authorized. If you are not the intended recipient (or otherwise authorized to receive this message by the intended recipient), any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of the information is prohibited. If you have received this electronic message transmission in error, please contact the sender by reply email and delete all copies of this message. Cigital, Inc. accepts no responsibility for any loss or damage resulting directly or indirectly from the use of this email or its contents. Thank You. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ 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