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Rust will save Linux from AI, says Greg Kroah-Hartman (www.zdnet.com)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/linux@programming.dev
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[–] 9 points 5 months ago (1 child)

Technically yes, it would make it harder, but a house with unpickable locks isn't impervious to entry. In my personal experience memory exploits aren't the primary methods hackers use to gain access or run custom code. I think layers of protection are more effective at stopping actual damage from being done. Run custom code, but you're still an unprivileged user. Elevate your access but you're still in a sandbox. Break out of the sandbox but you breach memory allocation and the environment is destroyed and rebuilt. And all the while you should be tripping alerts.

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  • [–] 23 points 5 months ago

    The article actually covers that kind of defensive work a bit (although it's all kernel internals):

    "...if Rust disappeared tomorrow, we have cleaned up the C code in the kernel so much and taken in the ideas. We thank you, you've made Linux better with it just by existing."

    He described new C "guards" and scoped locks inspired by Rust ...

    And

    Beyond language features, Kroah-Hartman tied Rust directly to a broader push around untrusted data and the idea that "all input is evil."
    ... He described ongoing work on an "untrusted" type wrapper and a validate method in Rust that forces explicit validation at the point where data crosses from untrusted to trusted.

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