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Beaten: Another Ridiculously Old Unix Bug
By Doug Caverly
Staff Writer
Article Date: 2008-07-11
Not too long ago, we brought you news of a 25-year-old Unix flaw getting fixed. This seemed remarkable enough, only now, there's word that a 33-year-old problem has been identified and resolved.
Yes, a buffer overflow bug that (if human) was nearly old enough to run for president, and certainly predates the time when computers entered the mainstream, was found by OpenBSD developer Otto Moerbeek.
Moerbeek explained the issue, writing, "[I]f the stack is at maximum size, this will overflow if an entry on the stack is larger than the 16 bytes leeway my malloc allows. In the case of of C++ it is 24 bytes, so a SEGV occured."
The Slashdot crowd started an interesting and funny conversation from there. One of the more amusing comments came from spir0, who wondered, "a 33 year old bug, plus a 25 year old bug . . . . if we keep going backwards, will the world implode? or will daemons start spewing out of cracks in time and space?"
It is indeed quite strange that two ancient bugs would be discovered one after the other. But for the time being, anyway, it might be best to avoid the apocalypse possibility and just stick with complimenting some very attentive developers.
About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.
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