Re: What does tainting actually mean?

[Muli Ben-Yehuda]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2004 at 02:48:30PM +0200, Måns Rullgård wrote:
> > Stack overflows in a badly written device driver can overwrite task
> > structures and cause apparent filesystem problems which are blamed on
> > the hapless filesystem authors instead of where the blame properly
> > lies, namely the device driver author.
> 
> Wouldn't the problem be just as difficult to pin to a certain module
> even if the source code was open?  I prefer open source modules (I
> have Alpha machines), but I just can't see this argument work.

No. If the code is open, you can read it and find the bug - just by
reading it. If the code is closed, your only recourse is to observe
the corruption while it happens or read the assembly, which is quite a
lot more difficult. 

Cheers, 
Muli
-- 
Muli Ben-Yehuda
http://www.mulix.org | http://mulix.livejournal.com/

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature