284
New 'Looney Tunables' Linux bug gives root on major distros
(www.bleepingcomputer.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
284 points (99.0% liked)
Linux
48152 readers
753 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Question would be rather: why is something like C++ needed for such simple apps?
C++ seems to be in that weird in-between place of offering high level features to be reasonable productive, but still doesn't enforce/guarantee anything to make these features safe. I'd argue, very few programs need that. Either you're writing business stuff, then you want safety (Java, C#, rust), or you're writing embedded/low level stuff, then you want control (C, ASM).
The room for "productive, but not interested in safety" is basically just AAA games, I guess.
C is almost the old "steady" standard now it feels like. It's so flexible and the frameworks are already built..
...except that we also end up with cracks in our foundations like this exploit constantly being exposed as a result of all that C
Well you're not going to write asm if you want your code to be portable at all, and believe it or not C++ has a lot of features to help you not shoot yourself in the foot that C doesn't have (ex. OOP, RAII, smart pointers).
C wasn't really designed with dynamic memory management in mind. It was designed for someone who has absolute control over a machine and all the memory in it.
malloc()andfree()are just functions that some environments expose to user mode processes, but C was never designed to care where you got your memory or what you do with it.