Posts by fg_swe

The wild world of non-C operating systems

HP MPE

MPE was a very successful business (as opposed to scientific and technical) computer operating system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Multi-Programming_Executive

http://www.robelle.com/smugbook/classic.html

MPE had a rough start, but after a couple of years it developed into a rock-solid OS, loved by loyal customers of the corporate world.

It was in fact a kind of economic mini-mainframe which could connect thousands of end user terminals for transaction processing, email, order processing, manufacturing management and the like.

It was implemented in a kind of Pascal.

MPE would still be in use if customers had to make the call, because it was so reliable and secure.

We blocked North Korea's Chrome exploit, says Google

Possibly -> Likely

"Any nontrivial C or C++ program contains plenty of exploitable bugs. Even if program has been written by seasoned software engineers".

http://sappeur.ddnss.de/Sappeur_Cyber_Security.pdf

"Collect all their data, one day, one of them might become evil".

CVE-2022-0609: Use After Free / Lack of Memory Safety

Time and again, C++ enables the bad guys to penetrate systems.

http://sappeur.ddnss.de/Sappeur_Cyber_Security.pdf

Here is a potential fix: http://sappeur.ddnss.de/SAPPEUR.pdf

More Chrome bugs, which could have been caught using a memory safe language:

[$15000][1290008] High CVE-2022-0603: Use after free in File Manager. Reported by Chaoyuan Peng (@ret2happy) on 2022-01-22

[$7000][1273397] High CVE-2022-0604: Heap buffer overflow in Tab Groups. Reported by Krace on 2021-11-24

[$7000][1286940] High CVE-2022-0605: Use after free in Webstore API. Reported by Thomas Orlita on 2022-01-13

[$7000][1288020] High CVE-2022-0606: Use after free in ANGLE. Reported by Cassidy Kim of Amber Security Lab, OPPO Mobile Telecommunications Corp. Ltd. on 2022-01-17

[$TBD][1250655] High CVE-2022-0607: Use after free in GPU. Reported by 0x74960 on 2021-09-17

[$NA][1296150] High CVE-2022-0609: Use after free in Animation. Reported by Adam Weidemann and Clément Lecigne of Google's Threat Analysis Group on 2022-02-10

HP finance manager went on $5m personal spending spree with company card

German Spelling

Whenever you hear "sh" in a German word, it will be written "sch".

Porsche.

C: Everyone's favourite programming language isn't a programming language

Also FALSE

Both Fujitsu and Unisys still sell Algol mainframes.

RAII in Sappeur

Of course you can use RAII in Sappeur and you can also do generic programming. Either using the m4 macro processor (now preferred) or using Sappeur generic code.

You can think of Sappeur being a memory safe C++ version. A C++ without built-in landmines.

Finally, inside inline_cpp[[]] you can use C++ STL code and your existing classes. No longer guaranteed memory safe, of course !

RAII in C++ can still easily create memory bugs, especially if your code does multithreading.

Re: FALSE

HP MPE was used by thousands of businesses doing commercial work. It was a semi-mainframe OS connecting thousands of end users to a single multiprocessor machine. Customers were very happy with it, as it was rock-solid and efficient. It got killed because in the late 1990s the MBAs of HP were more interested in pushing Oracle, SAP and Microsoft.

The MPE kernel was implemented in a kind of Pascal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Multi-Programming_Executive

Here you can see how much users loved it: http://3kranger.com/OpenMPE/omaboutus.shtm. They begged HP to give them the source code, so that they could continue use it.

C = Hamburger Of Software Engineering

First and foremost C is cheap. It was "given away" and it is cheap to learn.

But the resulting exploitable bugs are extremely expensive to fix and mitigate.

That is why reasonable people dont eat burgers every day. Such eating is only cheap on the short run.

Re: Not a Language?

English speakers use French in every third word when they do not use Germanic and Viking. If the speaker wants to appear well-educated, he will use even more French.

"revolution"

More a Race To Cheapness.

See Algol Mainframes.

In this language, you can simply inline C++ code, including the calling of C functions:

http://sappeur.ddnss.de/SAPPEUR.pdf

(see inline_cpp[[ ]])

Of course inline_cpp sections should be few, small and written by a senior engineer with serious C++ experience. They are not memory safe.

FALSE

HP MPE

Algol mainframes from ICL, Unisys/Burroughs, Moscow

Singularity OS from MSR

Redox OS

None of their kernels are written in C.

"they"

I assume this is the Left Coast madness who claims that "genders are a social construct".

C Too Widely Used

We have loads of application-level systems such as web servers, browsers, email servers which should better be implemented in a memory-safe language. It would sterilize about 70% of exploitable bugs.

See http://sappeur.ddnss.de/Sappeur_Cyber_Security.pdf, last page.

Re: size matters

Here is a rather simple language which is memory safe: http://sappeur.ddnss.de/manual.pdf

Sappeur programs run on almost any POSIX-based computer which has a proper C++ compiler.

Rust is taking the memory safety aspect to the extreme.

ALGOL

Once upon a time there were Algol-based mainframes with much better memory/type safety than C.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICL_2900_Series

https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Null-References-The-Billion-Dollar-Mistake-Tony-Hoare/

C and Unix are just one branch of applied computer science and it probably won out due to cheapness. Not because of robustness, elegance, security.

Disingenious

There are vast domains where C could be replaced with memory-safe languages. It should be done for the sake of shoring up security of cybernetic systems.

C: A Regression Of Applied Computer Science

About 70 % of exploitable software bugs could be avoided* if a memory-safe language were used instead. This also applies for C code written by seasoned software engineers. Even though we humans are the most intelligent species on earth, we do make mistakes then and no. Unlike code generators, we have bad days due to family matters, project deadlines or just a mild case of flu.

When C was conceived, there were already much more robust languages such as ALGOL around.

In the year 2022 we have several efficient memory safe language options and they should be used as much as possible.

* http://sappeur.ddnss.de/Sappeur_Cyber_Security.pdf

What does Go-written malware look like? Here's a sample under the microscope

Sandboxie

One non-MSFT guy attempted to do the right thing:

https://sandboxie-plus.com/sandboxie/

This is the correct approach, but needs more investment.

More Specifically

A) Each *.exe and each script should have a digital signature which includes a unique program name, the name of the author and his organization. This will create some work for script engine developers - so be it.

B) Each *.exe and each script should have a sandbox profile that limits access and can be inspected by the user easily. Type Enforcement should be the norm. Almost all VBA scripts have no business in reading C code, for example. Scripts and programs without a signed sandbox profile must not be executed. Android is very close to this idea.

C) IT Administrators can install code signing certificates for their organization. They will work with the script/*.exe author to create proper sandbox profiles and then do the signing.

D) A centralized mechanism for disabling a named program or script should exist for IT Administrators.

Security Backwards

1.) A program downloaded from the interwebs (as opposed to properly installed), should prompt a warning to the user.

2.) In a properly sandboxed system, each executable will only have limited access to files, database connections, camera etc, it actually needs. By default, a random *.exe should only have access to itself, a small collection of standard DLLs and itself. Word should have access to *.docx, C Compiler to *.c and *.h, Catia to *.3dxml and so on.

3.) The fact that Windows still grants access based on User-ID is a testimony of Microsoft still living in the 1990s. They simply don't bother to proactively secure the system. Any *.exe or any VBA script owns whatever the user owns. And it can open an https connection to badguy.com for immeditate exfiltration of the booty.

Instead of proper engineering, the "AI" clowns come in and try their bandaids.

OVHcloud datacenter 'lacked' automatic fire extinguishers, electrical cutoff

Straßburg

The "o" is an attempt to frenchize the name.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stra%C3%9Fburg

Literally "the castle at the road".

UK's largest union to Arm: Freeze job cuts now

Or

...stop being a gear in the American Moneyspinning gearbox. Google is making something in the order of 100 billion in profits every year.

ARM could attack them head-on and create+sell phones based on Linux, efficient programming* (no Java waste) and full data protection+privacy. Team up with Canonical, Bull (whatever funny name they now have), the finnish, Trolltech etc.

But that would require initiative, creativity, a bit of capital and daring. Most of which is lacking in western Europe these days. Instead we have this clueless WEF-programmed robot elite.

*something like this: http://sappeur.ddnss.de/

What They Mean

"Europe is very weak in the semiconductor business. There are not too many British alternatives outside ARM for them, if they want to continue their specialization".

Moving to Infineon, NXP or STM is probably not easy, given the language and culture barriers. At least not as easy as moving to one of 250 other companies of this type in the SF area.

Of course this line of thinking is a bit destructive. There are probably many computer science jobs in the UK outside ARM. If the chip companies are not interested, there are automotive, aerospace, rail, tool machines, instruments, banking, medical, etc etc.

Politicians here are incapable of replicating the Airbus success story in computers and semiconductors. No Franz Josef Strauss and no General de Gaulle around...

And of course the Americans will try to sabotage it with all of their power instruments from lawyers to defamation experts. Lets see how they reign into Ursula...

Weak Profitability

So ARM makes 2000 Millions of revenue and less than a million in profits ?

Other IT companies make 200 million profit on 2000 Million of revenue.

Being financially weak is absolutely dangerous and nasty things can happen.

Would any one of you invest your own capital in ARM ?

Assuming a market cap of 30 billions*: Safer to put it into an account and get 0,5% instead of 0,003%.

Every sane man will conclude that something is badly wrong with the company. Probably the licenses are given away too cheap.

Another explanation could be that ARM is growing too aggressively, given their 40% revenue growth. Either way, does not look great.

*which is very generous, given 2 billion of revenue and almost nil profts.

Arm to drop up to 15 percent of staff – about 1,000 people

Re: Secrecy ?

Such petty matters are forgotten in 10 years time. Again, grow a pair.

And if you cant find a job in circuits, switch the track to another industry. Whoever can read a requirements spec, has some basic physics understanding and can program in C should currently join automotive control units development*. Also, you can always join banking if you have serious scientifc skills.

*check the openings in the land of petrol carriage. Qwant.com will do the searching.

HP

Once upon a time, there was a glorious Imperium called HP. The sun never set on them while they made advanced things from atomic clocks to patient monitors to processors to printers to matchbox sized harddrives. In the 1990s they had the vision of a mobile phone very much like the current smartfone. And a vision of cloud computing very much like AWS. They had touch screens in the 1980s.

In the 1990s the founders died after a very long and great life.

Then swooped in the MBAs and quickly found out that they could not run the Empire. Too complex for an MBA without serious R&D, production and sales experience. So they chopped it up into pieces. The pieces chopped themselves up.

What can we learn ? All great things come to an end one day.

If you are an employee of such an Empire, just move on to another place. Find a great hobby of your own. Focus on your family.

Advocatus Diaboli

Companies of more than 20 people usually have several projects ongoing. Some of which are successful and some which are not. In some circumstances it COULD make sense to close down the less than stellar projects.

Having said that, it also COULD make sense to retain good people and move them to the stellar projects, emulating the HP Way.

The fortunes of business (and other spheres ?) are unpredictable and sometimes the best thing you can do is pray.

Secrecy ?

You never tell your former employer where you go. Dont expose your employment history in LinkedIN.

Or if they ask, tell them you will go to work for a totally different industry.

Stop being a sheep.

Microsoft proposes type syntax for JavaScript

FALSE

If you want to see a "young" language with rather strict typing and high efficiency, look here: http://sappeur.ddnss.de/

The trick is to divorce yourself from the media messaging and use your own rationality. Just because something (in this case dynamic typing and type inference) is being hyped, does not mean YOU should agree with that. Use your experience, your own rationality and you can create something that is truly an improvement on the state of the art.

For example, I observed:

A) C++ programs are highly efficient

B) Java* programs are more robust than C++

C) Java programs are inefficient

D) The "trade-off" between Java and C++ programs are not for inherent reasons.

E) Algol, Pascal, Ada, Modula-2 were in many ways better than C++ is today.

So I proceeded on to create a strongly typed language that appears to be old-fashioned in some ways, but results in very robust programs which are at the same time rather efficient.

*and a raft of similar languages such as C#, F#, Python, Scala

Computer SCIENCE

A "dev" could be anybody from a self trained former priest to a guy with a PHD in CS.

What I found is that computer science is indeed a science of its own and neither EE nor Math people automatically know about efficient algorithms+data structures. They typically never had a lecture on computer architecture.

In addition, most people are too lazy to get to the bottom of "boring details" like sort and hash algorithms. They assume their self-invented hash code will be more than good enough. Which is wrong. They assume the built-in sort algorithm will be good for all purposes. Also wrong.

In other words: if you want a top class program, you better hire top class people who know the theory behind what they do. The self-trained ones will most likely produce solutions which are much worse complexity-wise. E.g. O(n^2) for a merge program which can be O(n).

Syntax Irrelevant

Whether you write

int a

OR

a: int

does not make a noticeable difference.

Let's focus on semantics, not syntax.

Reasons for Strong Typing

1.) JavaScript is only moderately efficient, because JS VMs will create a "shadow type system" during program execution, then optimize the code based on the shadow types. This mechanism is hugely complex and creates lots of attack surface. Also, it consumes energy which could be spent more wisely.

2.) Strongly typed languages can detect many classes of programming errors before the program even executes. These errors are usually the cheapest.

3.) Type systems can even eliminate serious multithreading race conditions. See this language of mine: http://sappeur.ddnss.de/

China's top tech city Shenzhen locks down completely for at least a week

Re: Oligarchy

The US tech oligarchy has a vested interest in cheap Chinese labour, shipping high technology to China (irrespective of the military implications). Also, Mr GATES is a investor-peddler of a dangerous vaccince, which does more bad than good for people younger than 70. For some funny reason the supposedly super deadly virus came from the Chicoms.

The US the de facto head of NATO.

Russia 'stole US defense data' from IT systems

Bingo

These contractors are obviously clueless. Or maybe they want some leaking, because that makes the other side even stronger. That means even more pork for the contractors.

$$$ !

Apple emits emergency fix for exploited-in-the-wild WebKit vulnerability

Questioning Standards

The "standards" of C and C++ are obviously a huge security problem. You can now play sisyphus and roll the rock up the hill forever - OR - you start to question the root cause.

Software engineers and programmers need all the safety nets they can get, including Memory Safety.

Mozilla attempted to reimplement the browser in Rust, but then mysteriousy stopped this effort.

Systemic Source: Lack of Memory Safety in C++

Tme and Again, the lack of Memory Safety in C++ causes exploitable bugs.

We should get rid of handcoded C an C++.

http://sappeur.ddnss.de/Sappeur_Cyber_Security.pdf

Also see what Sir Tony Hoare has to say on this subject.

Securing open-source code isn't going to be cheap

Systemic Security Approaches

1.) Proper Grammars, Parsers, Scanners. Make them suited to the application, precise and as strict as possible. Stay clear of of Generic Serialization.

2.) Memory Safe Languages can eliminate 70% of CVE Bugs. Do NOT use C. See http://sappeur.ddnss.de/Sappeur_Cyber_Security.pdf

3.) Sandboxing, Firewalling. MS Word has no business reading your engineering files and neither does CATIA need access to your letters.

3.2) Scripts from not-well-known sources should run inside a sandbox.

4.) Certified, Minimalist Mikrokernels

https://hensoldt-cyber.com/2021/06/24/sel4-why-a-microkernel-system/

https://fgw.ddnss.de/L4gegenueberLinux.html

5.) KISS: Keep your security approach simple and therefore easy to analyze, easy to follow. Avoid TLS, if possible. Way too complex to properly implement.

6.) Minimize attack surface to the outside. Exposing Exchange/Outlook/Office to the outside world is a very bad idea, given that they are behind points 1 to 5 by at least 20 if not 40 years.

Your data centre UPS could feed power to the smart grid, suggests research

Here is How to REALLY do this

https://fgw.ddnss.de/StromSpeicher.html

An online translator can give you an English version.

Chemical Batteries are in the order of 100x to 1000x too expensive to store a nation's electricity for a month. Also, they wear down in a few years, unlike a concrete construction, which can last 100 years, if properly done.

Trio of Rust Core Team members take their leave

Re: history lessons

Look at my language Sappeur, you can always break out into unsafe C++, if you really need to:

http://sappeur.ddnss.de/SAPPEUR.pdf (search "C++ Integration")

It also runs everywhere where a moderately capable C++ compiler is present. From Power to ELBRUS.

"ultra reliable" - NOT

The memory unsafe C language is a key reason for the existence of the Cyber War Domain.

The Algol mainframes that already existed in the 1970s were more robust than Unix, but also more expensive. The el cheapo approach won.

http://sappeur.ddnss.de/Sappeur_Cyber_Security.pdf

https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Null-References-The-Billion-Dollar-Mistake-Tony-Hoare/

Remote code execution vulnerability in Samba due to macOS interop module

C: Memory Unsafe - Insecure

The first exploit CVE-2021-44142 could have been avoided by using a memory safe language such as this one:

http://sappeur.ddnss.de/

Rolls-Royce consortium shopping for factory sites to build mini-nuclear reactors

There should be founded some sort of Nuclear Airbus, in order to pool the competence and capital of Britain, France, Spain, Sweden, Czech Republic, Italy and so on. Germany is at this point not willing to do nuclear, as the Maoist Dreamers are still in control. We need a cold winter with Methane cuts to change this.

The Nuclear Airbus could be a great programme for industrial rejuvenation, great jobs and strategic security. It might even make sense to mine Uranium in Czech mountains and in Bulgaria. All controlled by competent medical experts to ensure safety for all people inside and near the mines.

We also do not need the EU or the Euro currency to make this happen. Banks can perform the moneychanging, it is part of their core business.

Reactor Barge

The Russians have constructed and now operate a reactor on a barge. It now runs somewhere in the highest North.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov

The concept would be perfect for Britain, too. Manufacture the barges in one factory/shipyard and then tow into the 'target' harbour.

The Russians also successfully operate a fast neutron, sodium cooled reactor. It could one day be used to burn all the 'waste' U238.

We can definitely learn a trick or two from the east vikings.

Greeny LIES

"It's true the supply and demand periods don't always align. This is no big deal. Power companies deal with this all the time."

Germany already has this problem. It is "handled" by depending on France, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland to supply and consume large amounts of electricity to/from Germany.

In other words, wind+solar need 100% backup in the form of coal, methane, Uranium, Plutonium (the Russians currently burn some of that) and Thorium.

Prices at the spot market now approach 100cent/kWh. Rail cargo transport ceases to be possible at this price point.

The Greenies (rooted in Maoism) are ideologues and liars, masters of both.

Honest Accounting

Nuclear is not zero CO2. Neither is wind or solar. Both need ENORMOUS input of coal to produce the concrete, steel and the cells themselves. And the elements to make the cells.

It is called EROI - energy return on investment.

EROI = EnergyProduced / (EnergyForMachine + EnergySpentForFuel)

Nuclear EROI is at 80, solar cells at 10, windmills at 20.

Even hydropower emits CO2, because dams or "bathtubs in the sea" need voracious amounts of concrete and steel to build. Concrete and steel are made from large amounts of coal. The coal can NOT be replaced in a large scale for the time being.

Here is an attempt at designing a Bathtub to store the fluctuating German wind+solar power for just one month:

https://fgw.ddnss.de/StromSpeicher.html

It would require the concrete production of all of Germany for one year, but it might nevertheless make sense to build it, as it is highly efficient compared to hydrogen storage.

Hydrogen storage loses something like 60% of power in the storage+retrieval cycle. Water storage loses just 10%.