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A comment on RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessing Them.

Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by rsweeney21 on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @05:43PM (#20159795)
Shortly after I joined Microsoft in 2004, all new feature work on Windows Longhorn (Vista) was halted. There had been yet another high profile computer virus on Windows XP caused by a buffer overflow. It was an all-hands-on-deck type moment. Everyone spent weeks adding SAL (source-code annotation language) annotations to the entire Windows code base. SAL annotations enabled automated source code analysis to identify potential buffer overflow bugs and other common security vulnerabilities. Once annotated, we identified and fixed who knows how many hundreds of security vulnerabilities in Windows.

This colossal security update was released as Windows XP Service Pack 2. This is the beauty of software.

Hardware vulnerabilities scare me. There are millions of Intel CPUs and DRAM modules installed in data centers and PCs around the world. When we find vulnerabilities in hardware how are we supposed to fix them?

The past few years have been really scary for me as a software engineer. I keep thinking that the next one will pop the software bubble.

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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by anaphor on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @07:44PM (#20160532)
Maybe hardware will have to become more programmable in the future so you can fix some of these flaws without needing to replace anything.
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by TylerE on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @08:31PM (#20160765)
It can't just be turtles all the way down.
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by mycall on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @09:08PM (#20160905)
Can you make an FPGA out of an FPGA?
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by FPGAhacker on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @02:10AM (#20162163)
Yes
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by pault on Sunday June 16, 2019 @12:39PM (#20196376) 

  user: FPGAhacker
  created: January 14, 2018
Checks out!
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by smolder on Thursday June 13, 2019 @06:06PM (#20178991)
I'm already done making an fpga out of my fpga, and I never had one!
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by lyxsus1 on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @09:11PM (#20160923)
Is it a known phrase or your good sense of humour?
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by taneq on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @09:16PM (#20160937)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by lyxsus1 on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @06:44PM (#20170114)
Ah, thank you. William James keeps chasing me.
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by mehrdadn on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @09:32PM (#20161017)
> SAL annotations

Are there tools for developers to use these (e.g. with VC++), or are they all Microsoft internal?

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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by ryacko on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @10:20PM (#20161201)
I have read about this: https://github.com/google/styleguide/tree/gh-pages/cpplint

There is also this: https://github.com/mre/awesome-static-analysis

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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by mehrdadn on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @10:26PM (#20161229)
I was specifically asking about SAL.
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by ryacko on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @10:32PM (#20161259)
There is also this: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/code-quality/u...
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by mehrdadn on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @10:36PM (#20161271)
I think they talk about the annotation but not the analysis tools?
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by hoseja on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @02:25AM (#20162222)
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/code-quality/c...

It's part of VC++.

But I do not recommend using SAL for modern code.

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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by mehrdadn on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @02:34AM (#20162267)
Oh wow. I'd used /analyze before but I hadn't realized it takes SAL into account. I thought it just does limited extra analysis without SAL. Thank you!
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by tru3_power on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @12:28AM (#20161779)
Yup there are a few static code analysis tools that support using annotations afaik
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by mehrdadn on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @12:50AM (#20161858)
SAL specifically, or other kinds?
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by mey on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @07:05PM (#20160316)
I am wondering if/when the first class action lawsuits will fly against the hardware manufacturers.
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by AnaniasAnanas on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @03:13AM (#20162436)
Dependent types can prevent buffer overflow attacks without any additional runtime overhead.
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Re:RAMBleed Attack – Reading Bits in Memory Without Accessin... by 29athrowaway on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @03:12AM (#20162430)
Firmware and microcode updates.
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