From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Mark H Weaver Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.devel Subject: Re: Verifying Toolchain Semantics Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 02:23:22 -0400 Message-ID: <87mw9dfz8l.fsf@netris.org> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1412317444 30348 80.91.229.3 (3 Oct 2014 06:24:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2014 06:24:04 +0000 (UTC) Cc: guile-devel@gnu.org To: Ian Grant Original-X-From: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Oct 03 08:23:57 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: guile-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 1XZwHV-000292-8t for guile-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 03 Oct 2014 08:23:57 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:38143 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XZwHU-0006UR-RE for guile-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 03 Oct 2014 02:23:56 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:50227) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XZwHL-0006UB-0K for guile-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Oct 2014 02:23:52 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XZwHF-0004IF-EE for guile-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Oct 2014 02:23:46 -0400 Original-Received: from world.peace.net ([96.39.62.75]:50045) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XZwHF-0004Gw-Ax for guile-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Oct 2014 02:23:41 -0400 Original-Received: from c-24-62-95-23.hsd1.ma.comcast.net ([24.62.95.23] helo=jojen) by world.peace.net with esmtpsa (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1XZwGx-0007Ov-Lu; Fri, 03 Oct 2014 02:23:23 -0400 In-Reply-To: (Ian Grant's message of "Thu, 2 Oct 2014 10:54:20 -0400") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3.94 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6.x X-Received-From: 96.39.62.75 X-BeenThere: guile-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Developers list for Guile, the GNU extensibility library" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.devel:17531 Archived-At: Ian Grant writes: > Dear programming language types, > > I wrote this to try once again to explain what is the nature of the > problem that one would have in verifying the integrity of _any_ > software toolchain, whether it is aimed ultimately at the production > of other software, or of hardware. > > http://livelogic.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-foundation-part-i.html I downloaded the PDF linked in that blog entry and attempted to view it using Emacs's docview mode, which reported that the pdf->png process died with a segfault. It's ironic that someone who claims to be so concerned with security steadfastly refuses to provide his most important essays in a simple, transparent format. Instead, he insists to distribute them in an opaque format that can only be interpreted by a small handful of very complex programs with a large attack surface. For that matter, it's also interesting that someone concerned about Thompson viruses would suggest that Guile should distribute it's compiler in the form of pre-compiled intermediate C code (compiled from Scheme) instead of bootstrapping from source code, in order to speed up the compilation process. I've wasted more time than I should have reading Ian's writings, looking for an answer to this apparent contradiction in his views, and I haven't found it. While we're on the subject of paranoid theories, here's one for you: maybe Ian Grant's true motive is to induce some of the most important developers of free toolchains and the Linux kernel to load PDFs that infect their computers with malware, in order to subvert our core infrastructure. Ian: tell me again, why do you refuse to distribute your essays in plain text? I read GNU Thunder and I don't remember seeing anything in there that justifies the use of such a complex format. As I recall, it's just plain text anyway. Mark