SoylentNews

AnonTechie [soylentnews.org] writes:

Computer programmers won't stop making dangerous errors on their own. It's time they adopted an idea that makes the physical world safer.
Three computer bugs this year exposed passwords, e-mails, financial data, and other kinds of sensitive information connected to potentially billions of people. The flaws cropped up in different places-the software running on Web servers, iPhones, the Windows operating system — but they all had the same root cause: careless mistakes by programmers.

Each of these bugs — the "Heartbleed" bug in a program called OpenSSL, the "goto fail" bug in Apple's operating systems, and a so-called "zero-day exploit" discovered in Microsoft's Internet Explorer-was created years ago by programmers writing in C, a language known for its power, its expressiveness, and the ease with which it leads programmers to make all manner of errors. Using C to write critical Internet software is like using a spring-loaded razor to open boxes-it's really cool until you slice your fingers.

http://www.technologyreview.com/review/527956/imposing-security/ [technologyreview.com]

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