From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs Lisp's future Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 12:18:49 +0900 Message-ID: <871tqlubqe.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <54193A70.9020901@member.fsf.org> <87lhp6h4zb.fsf@panthera.terpri.org> <87k34qo4c1.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <54257C22.2000806@yandex.ru> <83iokato6x.fsf@gnu.org> <87wq8pwjen.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <837g0ptnlj.fsf@gnu.org> <87r3yxwdr6.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87tx3tmi3t.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <834mvttgsf.fsf@gnu.org> <87lhp5m99w.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87h9ztm5oa.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <87d2ahm3nw.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <871tqneyvl.fsf@netris.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1412565587 31966 80.91.229.3 (6 Oct 2014 03:19:47 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2014 03:19:47 +0000 (UTC) Cc: dak@gnu.org, Mark H Weaver , dmantipov@yandex.ru, emacs-devel@gnu.org, handa@gnu.org, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, eliz@gnu.org To: rms@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Oct 06 05:19:39 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Xaypl-0004Fu-Ub for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 06 Oct 2014 05:19:38 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:49793 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xaypl-0004Yz-Gl for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 05 Oct 2014 23:19:37 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:50679) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XaypQ-0004Yj-Ke for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 05 Oct 2014 23:19:24 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XaypJ-0000lY-4f for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 05 Oct 2014 23:19:16 -0400 Original-Received: from shako.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.161]:35116) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xayp2-0000hG-Pn; Sun, 05 Oct 2014 23:18:53 -0400 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) by shako.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTP id 703E41C3939; Mon, 6 Oct 2014 12:18:49 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 6404F1A2888; Mon, 6 Oct 2014 12:18:49 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: VM undefined under 21.5 (beta34) "kale" acf1c26e3019 XEmacs Lucid (x86_64-unknown-linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x X-Received-From: 130.158.97.161 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:175001 Archived-At: Richard Stallman writes: > I'd like to know how it is that "raw bytes" have security implications. > Are there programs that make assumptions about the contents of strings? > That seems like bad design. Yes, they do, and no, it's poor implementation, not bad design -- they're conforming to standards that say that string contents will have a specific form and are unfortunately imperfectly protected from invalid input by their I/O modules (for example, the \201 bug in Emacs itself). As a consequence it's often possible to crash a program that is incompletely robust to invalid encodings. If that program is a spam/virus checker, and the problem is compounded by a site policy that accepts mail when the checker fails, anything can happen. That's just an example.