Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:08:09 +0100
From:      Matt Dawson <matt@chronos.org.uk>
To:        freebsd-security@freebsd.org
Cc:        des@des.no
Subject:   Re: Protecting against kernel NULL-pointer derefs
Message-ID:  <200909151908.10099.matt@chronos.org.uk>
In-Reply-To: <863a6our7c.fsf@ds4.des.no>
References:  <4AAF4A64.3080906@thedarkside.nl> <200909151622.26589.matt@chronos.org.uk> <863a6our7c.fsf@ds4.des.no>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Tuesday 15 Sep 2009 17:07:35 Dag-Erling Sm=C3=B8rgrav wrote:
> Pieter strongly implied that there had been numerous such cases, when
> in fact there hasn't.

Yes, DES, it could be read that way and I apologise. Without trying to=20
wiggle out of that apology, it just seemed a bit harsh when I doubt what=20
was written was meant as "the code is riddled with these things! RIDDLED!"=
=20
given the fact that Pieter proposed a possible mitigation instead of the=20
expected "El Reg says it's broken! EL REG! Fix it now, goddammit!" ;o)

@All:
Having put both feet in my mouth and had to publicly apologise, we now have=
=20
a little more information from Przemyslaw on what is potentially broken and=
=20
what isn't (7.2, the current production release). That "probably more to=20
come," while still vague and very much unverified, makes me wonder if=20
Pieter's interim mitigation or something very much like it isn't needed=20
Right Now [TM] as he says. So, is there any technically sound reason why=20
raising VM_MIN_ADDRESS to 65536 would not be a good trade-off (or even just=
=20
a good idea) in security terms until we're sure there are no more of these=
=20
lurking? A few of us paranoid security types might want to do so manually=20
in the interim if there are no objections.
=2D-=20
Matt Dawson
MTD15-RIPE
matt@chronos.org.uk



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200909151908.10099.matt>