Posts by Sysprog Steve

Anatomy of OpenSSL's Heartbleed: Just four bytes trigger horror bug

Re: boltar

Regarding S/370 (now z/OS) memory allocation, this statement, "Of course, all that means that your corewalker just has to avoid the first byte and it's safe but the principle can be extended"

The part of memory that shows who "owns" it is not addressable by user programs, but by the OS. You don't get to skip it.

Depending on the implementation, though, that is not necessarily bulletproof. If the memory is owned by the service provider, such as the SSL task, rather than the requestor, there is no restriction.

The mainframe OS has other mechanisms to avoid this sort of problem, some based on architecture, some based on the security software (which is forced through certain hoops BY the architecture.)

Not fool-proof, certainly, but it makes this sort of vulnerability exceedingly rare.

Cheers,,,Steve

Canadian comet impact fingered for triggering prehistoric climate shift

Re: That's nice then

Google "aurochs".

Pakistan blocks 20,000 sites in wake of anti-Islam vid

Re: Fucking numpties.

Key in on the last two words of your post. "Modern world" carries with it implicit access to technology and non-government controlled access to the Web. For much of the world outside the Americas, Europe , Japan and Oceania, that is not the case.

Blizzard faces court battle for 'misleading Diablo III fans'

Re: Its a MMORPG !

Diablo II, Neverwinter Nights.

They shoot mainframes, don't they?

Update your knowledge

Have you even looked at the last few generations of mainframe hardware? About the size of a large refrigerator. Environmentals are not what they were even 15 years ago. Go do some reading before spouting obsolete nonsense.

A mainframe running VM, hosting dozens or hundreds of Linux servers is orders of magnitude less footprint, less electricity, less cooling, less administrative overhead. The system management tools and the reliability of a mainframe have other platforms drooling in envy.

Museum piece? Hardly.