...
> Besides just FP, 128-bit, etc, I remain concerned about just basic
> math operations. C has no way to describe the intent of integer
> overflow, so the kernel was left with the only "predictable" result:
> wrap around. Unfortunately, this is wrong in most cases, and we're left
> with entire classes of vulnerability related to such overflows.
I'm not sure any of the alternatives (except perhaps panic)
are much better.
Many years ago I used a COBOL system that skipped the assignment
if ADD X to Y (y += x) would overflow.
That gave a very hard to spot error when the sump of a long list
way a little too large.
If it had wrapped the error would be obvious.
There are certainly places where saturate is good.
Mostly when dealing with analogue samples.
I guess the problematic code is stuff that checks:
if (foo->size + constant > limit) goto error;
instead of:
if (foo->size > limit - constant) goto error;
David
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