From: Gregory Brown <gregory.t.brown@...>
Date: 2006-01-08T15:37:24+09:00
Subject: Re: Ideas on "Why Living Dangerous can be A Good Thing" in Ruby?

On 1/8/06, gwtmp01@mac.com <gwtmp01@mac.com> wrote:

> If there are vulnerabilities, who are the attackers?  I think there are
> reasonable issues to discuss in this area but I think the language
> choice

This is a good point.  It's hard to make a general statement about
security when you are not sure who you are securing against.  I think
that the key issues are secondary libraries modifying other software
and making it unreliable (Such as namespace collisions, unexpected
redefinitions, etc), and the ability to make a set of software behave
in irratic ways by modifying it's internals via metaprogramming and
the like.

I mean, my general advice when it comes to ruby when asked about
security is that I basically respond, "There is none, but it's not as
bad as you'd expect.  Write proper test suites, code responsibly, and
make sure you nail down those edge cases.  Continuous integration is a
must,  and idiomatic code with proper style will help make the API
less likely to cause damage (such as the use of ! and other
indicators).

However, to the outsider, this is only an explanation of "how" to
overcome the apparent "flaw".  I'd like to do as good a job I can of
explaining why it isn't a flaw, when practiced correctly.

I agree that your rephrasing is probably a more sane way to address
the concerns, but we need to consider that there are those who just
assume security is an integral part of their language, and I'd love to
compile a good article about why that's not always necessary, and in
fact, can be less useful than a more open platform.