From: tnp@invalid.invalid   
      
   On 04/02/2026 14:50, Richard Kettlewell wrote:   
   > The Natural Philosopher  writes:   
   >> On 04/02/2026 08:24, Richard Kettlewell wrote:   
   >>>>     Being able to pass pointers back and forth is a strong point with   
   >>>>     'C'. In theory this COULD be exploited by evil actors, but I can't   
   >>>>     find any clear doc on whether it's been done to any relevant degree.   
   >>> Yes, constantly and for many decades now. Have a look through CV >   
   >>> databases or follow a list like oss-security and you’ll see a steady   
   >>> stream of vulnerabilities arising from C’s lack of memory safety.   
   >>   
   >> Yes, constantly and for many decades now. Have a look through CV   
   >> databases or follow a list like oss-security and you’ll see a steady   
   >> stream of memory bound exception arising from generations of  lazy   
   >> amateur  programming....   
   >   
   > By that standard the original Unix team were lazy amateurs, given the   
   > vulnerabilities in their code.   
      
   I would say that that is a fair description of their abilities. Berkeley   
   Unix was almost completely written by students. Very little of any of   
   the distributions were subject to in depth scrutiny. Even after it   
   became severely non free.   
      
   And that applies as much to Microsoft as well.   
      
   >   
   > The reality is that the language is error-prone, and blaming programmers   
   > for the outcome is just sticking your head in the sand.   
   >   
   All languages are error prone.   
   And blaming that for deficiencies in programmer quality  is just   
   sticking your head in the sand.   
      
   --   
   "Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They   
   always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them"   
      
   Margaret Thatcher   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)