bugtraq - RE: Update: Web browsers - a mini-farce (MSIE gives in)

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Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 09:30:54 -1000 (HST)
From: Tim Newsham <newsham@...a.net>
To: David Brodbeck <DavidB@...l.interclean.com>
Cc: Michael Wojcik <Michael.Wojcik@...rofocus.com>,
	Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu, bugtraq@...urityfocus.com
Subject: RE: Update: Web browsers - a mini-farce (MSIE gives in)


> > From: Tim Newsham [mailto:newsham@...a.net]
>
> > But lets assume that a good programmer is writing software and
> > it comes to his attention that there is a buffer overflow, or
> > that user input is not being filtered, or that user input is being
> > passed to a printf type function.  What happens next?  Well, it
> > depends on how many bugs there are, how much other work needs
> > to be done, and very importantly, what the perceived impact of
> > that bug is.  You cannot imagine how many times a bug is pointed
> > out and the author of the software says "ok, that bug can only
> > happen if the user does something stupid, and it is not exploitable.
> > Lets defer that one."
>
> This suggests that it's reasonable for a program to segfault because the
> user made a mistake, instead of having some non-fatal form of error
> handling.  I don't think that should be acceptable at all, though I agree
> it's very common.  If I had a dollar for every time I've lost work because a
> segfault or GPF happened before I saved my document...

A "defer" means "we'll fix it, but we have more important things to
do first."   I wouldn't say its an acceptance that its "reasonable"
behavior.

Tim N.