Post #2238393

2026-04-30 19:46 UTC

@stiiin@infosec.space And unsurprisingly, all the bugs are logic bugs, but the other question is, when was the last time the cp or rm or mv had a segfault or memory safety bug? Those utilities aren't a major source of memory safety bugs. They're a source of logic bugs, and converting to rust doesn't magically fix logic bugs. Rewriting libjpeg or other file parsing libraries would be a more useful endeavor, less logic to get wrong, more likely to have memory safety issues in C.

Replies (2)

@feld@friedcheese.us 2026-04-30 20:36

@encthenet@flyovercountry.social @stiiin@infosec.space "but you don't understand, we need to rewrite /bin/rm to burn 7 barrels of oil while compiling so we are certain that the one call to free() is automated"

Open ##2238394
@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange 2026-05-01 08:06

@encthenet@flyovercountry.social @stiiin@infosec.space You could fix 100% of temporal memory safety bugs in coreutils by adding this to the main C file: void free() {} Sure, they’ll leak memory, but how much memory do any of those tools allocate? They typically consume no more than a few milliseconds of CPU time (when they do run for a long time, it’s because they’re blocked on I/O).

Open ##2238397