Re: Improving Ada's image - Was: 7E7 Flight Controls Electronics

[Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com>]

That makes the possibly unwarranted assumptions that a) the original 
program is just inherently insecure because it was written in C/C++ and 
b) that implementation in Ada guarantees security. Neither assumption is 
of necessity true.

If the original program is insecure and inherently so, that is probably 
a reflection of my first condition: "The existing implementation is so 
bad that it can only really be fixed by tossing it out and starting 
again" But you *can* write a perfectly secure, reliable system in 
languages other than Ada. Maybe (maybe!) it requires more work, but it 
*can* be done. So unless the original system has some obvious weaknesses 
you intend to fix, what is the value of doing it in Ada? (Other than 
possibly as a hobby or just because you get a thrill out of knowing that 
your personal implementation is in Ada. To the bulk of the real-world 
users, it doesn't matter that the underlying implementation is in Ada so 
long as it works.)

If the original implementation is rewritten in Ada, that is also an 
opportunity to introduce all sorts of *new* bugs and security leaks. 
Just because its done in Ada doesn't mean the designers/implementors are 
going to automatically get it right and not leave any holes to exploit. 
Possibly, you eliminate one particular type of threat or another, but 
bad implementations in Ada are possible. New implementations are usually 
far weaker than legacy systems that have had the opportunity to be 
beaten about a good deal. So I don't see a compelling reason to go 
rewrite existing apps in Ada just so that they can be in Ada.

Now if someone can say "Let's take System X as a baseline but do it 
differently and add some new and amazing capabilities that will make a 
new app that is far more useful..." then you've got something worth 
discussing.

MDC

Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote:
> 
> You missed another good reason: c) improved security. Any daemon or process
> that interfaces with the wild wooly world out there, should be very
> secure (perfectly secure if theoretically possible). I think Ada can
> add some real value in this particular area, to the many "services"
> currently written in C/C++.


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