Re:What Spectre and Meltdown Mean for WebKit
by Nursie on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @09:07AM
(#16106209)
>> Plenty of harmful things are done with C and C++ but no one is saying we should deactivate native apps written in unsafe languages
This is not in any way equivalent to browsing an informational site and having arbitrary code execute.
>> Yet the web ... is the only one on which people - erstwhile hackers - say that code should be a considered a privilege and not a right,
Hell no, code execution is a privilege in all situations! I don't just download scores of random executables and run them. Do you?
>> But pretending javascript is a second-class citizen on the web isn't the answer.
Making it one might be an improvement though. There's no way in hell I should be (to give a recent example) browsing a keyboard review and notice that my laptop now sounds like an aircraft about to take off because the site is running something unidentified as fast as it can (likely a coin miner).
This is not in any way equivalent to browsing an informational site and having arbitrary code execute.
>> Yet the web ... is the only one on which people - erstwhile hackers - say that code should be a considered a privilege and not a right,
Hell no, code execution is a privilege in all situations! I don't just download scores of random executables and run them. Do you?
>> But pretending javascript is a second-class citizen on the web isn't the answer.
Making it one might be an improvement though. There's no way in hell I should be (to give a recent example) browsing a keyboard review and notice that my laptop now sounds like an aircraft about to take off because the site is running something unidentified as fast as it can (likely a coin miner).