On Wed, Nov 16, 2016 at 10:07:37AM +0100, Ingo Molnar wrote: > > * Greg KH <gre...@linuxfoundation.org> wrote: > > > On Wed, Nov 16, 2016 at 09:31:55AM +0100, Ingo Molnar wrote: > > > So what I'd love to see is to have a kernel option that re-introduces > > > some > > > historic root (and other) holes that can be exploited deterministically - > > > obviously default disabled. > > > > Ick, I don't want to have to support nasty #ifdefs for > > "CONFIG_TOTALLY_INSECURE" type options in code logic for the next 20+ > > years, do you? > > I'd write it in C, not CPP, so it would be an 'if', but yeah, it would be > extra > code otherwise. > > So I'd restrict this strictly to cases: > > - Where the maintainer absolutely agrees to carry it. > > - Where it's still easy to do technically - for example a single unobtrusive > 'if' condition or so, in cases where the current upstream code still has a > similar structure conductive to the re-introducion of the bug. Such > testcases > can be dropped the moment they interfere with active development. > > - Plus an additional approach could be that some of the typical holes can be > reproduced in completely separate code that is not seen by anyone who > doesn't > want to see it.
Ok, but in looking at a number of "security" fixes over the past year or so, I don't think that many of them would really work well for this. Just look at all of the "don't reference a NULL pointer" bugs for an example of that. > I doubt many bugs have 20 years life times in face of frequent code > reorganization > - and if code is static for 20 years then there won't be much extra > maintenance > overhead, right? Hah, you obviously are not in charge of maintaining the tty layer :) Anyway, if you want to try this for the next type of security "issue" in your area of the kernel, be my guest, but I think it's going to be a lot harder than you think. thanks, greg k-h
