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Yes. It currently runs over 70% of global internet and considering all kinds of error conditions that show up on the global internet the code is extremely stabl

by sre_ops 10y ago

Yes. It currently runs over 70% of global internet and considering all kinds of error conditions that show up on the global internet the code is extremely stable.

tptacek 10y ago
Sendmail used to run on something like 90% of the global Internet. And mail in the 1990s pretty much did work, pretty reliably. Would you have banked your site's security on the quality of Sendmail 8.6.12's code?
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  Slam dunk on that comment! Such systems, due to lots of debugging, can work reliably in a narrow set of use cases where specific features have massive use. Then there's the uncommon, usage scenarios and features that get much less debugging. Then there's all the patches they keep distributing to fix... "things." And then the fact that safe, reliable code is only first step toward secure code where an intelligence, malicious person is targeting it. Totally different ballpark that neither Sendmail nor Cisco handled so well. Small shops like Sentinel and Secure64 did way better with a tiny fraction of the money. So, it has to be intentional for the extra profit at customers' expense.
- sre_ops 10y ago
  It is unfortunate that people who downvote comments actually do not have an iota of clue about the topic which the comment about sendmail clearly illustrates. Bugs in BGP implementation kill internet in real-time. To a point where in certain cases it would be needed to literally power off all the affected routers at the same time globally after isolating the bad actor and disconnecting it.
Intermernet 10y ago
Extremely stable, but not extremely secure. This could be said for many companies, and Cisco shouldn't really be singled out here, but I think this is part of tptacek's overall point. The world should move away from huge C code-bases for critical infrastructure and adopt "safer" languages (Personally I love Go, but Rust may be a better option for high-speed packet routing).

by sre_ops 10y ago

Yes. It currently runs over 70% of global internet and considering all kinds of error conditions that show up on the global internet the code is extremely stable.

tptacek 10y ago

Sendmail used to run on something like 90% of the global Internet. And mail in the 1990s pretty much did work, pretty reliably. Would you have banked your site's security on the quality of Sendmail 8.6.12's code?

nickpsecurity 10y ago
Slam dunk on that comment! Such systems, due to lots of debugging, can work reliably in a narrow set of use cases where specific features have massive use. Then there's the uncommon, usage scenarios and features that get much less debugging. Then there's all the patches they keep distributing to fix... "things." And then the fact that safe, reliable code is only first step toward secure code where an intelligence, malicious person is targeting it. Totally different ballpark that neither Sendmail nor Cisco handled so well. Small shops like Sentinel and Secure64 did way better with a tiny fraction of the money. So, it has to be intentional for the extra profit at customers' expense.
sre_ops 10y ago
It is unfortunate that people who downvote comments actually do not have an iota of clue about the topic which the comment about sendmail clearly illustrates. Bugs in BGP implementation kill internet in real-time. To a point where in certain cases it would be needed to literally power off all the affected routers at the same time globally after isolating the bad actor and disconnecting it.

Intermernet 10y ago

Extremely stable, but not extremely secure. This could be said for many companies, and Cisco shouldn't really be singled out here, but I think this is part of tptacek's overall point. The world should move away from huge C code-bases for critical infrastructure and adopt "safer" languages (Personally I love Go, but Rust may be a better option for high-speed packet routing).