Re^3: How to answer "Perl is not secure" objections?

[Joost]

You didn't understand the sentence you quoted, not at all, and your own first sentence has absolutely no logic.

I disagree.

You assumed that OS is one thing, which is a bad assumption. Then you reasoned: if it is not secure to call A, then A is not secure.

I still do, and here's why: From the point of view of an application programming language, the OS is - more or less - a black box that provides services.

The quote was 'Perl has bindings into OS calls that bypass OS security'.

Now, there are calls in every OS that bypass 'normal' security protocols, but it's up to the OS to make sure that the application calling those hooks have the appropriate permissions to do so. For instance, a user on unix can create a file/tree that no other user can read or modify. The exception is, that processes running as root can. That is not 'bypassing security', that's providing exceptions to the normal protocol for system administration purposes.

If there was a way for a normal user to modify another user's files (again, given restricted rwx permissions) that would be 'bypassing security'. It would also be bug in the OS and not any kind of problem with the programming language that exploits the bug.

The fact is that OS is not one thing, it is many things - many layers. It is insecure to call layer B if you bypass layer A that was supposed to provide security.

Again, if the OS is supposed to provide that security under certain conditions, it should make sure that that security is provided under those conditions. The OS should not blindly trust a program without elevated permissions to do the right thing, it should enforce its policies.

read my oppinion that I just provided as reply to one of tilly's post...

I would if I could find it.

really people should learn some philosophy and logic.

I have. If you want to convince me of your opinion, please explain your standpoint, because just asserting that I'm wrong and undereducated isn't going to convince me - and it's rude.