[PATCH] Adding diversity for security

[Sean Silva]

On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 8:44 PM, Stephen Crane <sjcrane at uci.edu> wrote:

> I can't really speak to the first two points besides suggesting that we
> have working code ready to go for a useful tool to add to users' security
> toolbox.
>

In the original thread, there didn't seem to be any consensus as to the
usefulness of this though. That's the main reason I'm asking.


> However, this does lead to your third point... We've had off-list
> discussions with several different people who are interested in using this,
> assuming it fits their needs after testing, including Google and OpenBSD.
>

Cool, let's wait for the verdict "after testing" before deciding to pull
anything upstream.


> As for me, I'm certainly still on board with the work (and maintenance).
> Julian, a collaborator of mine at UC Irvine, is also helping put the
> finishing touches on the patch, and Andrei is also involved as needed since
> he wrote a good deal of the code for this.
>

In the meantime, one thing I'd like to suggest is for your team is to
submit some smaller patches (small bug fixes, cleanups etc.) that you've
run into while working on LLVM (I'm sure you've run into things while
working with LLVM! We have plenty of things that need attention!).

That way you can get familiar with the community coding conventions
(there's *a lot* of issues with the current patch) and micro-level review
process before diving into a "big" feature like this (one that entails
ongoing maintenance and a certain level of community involvement). It just
seems like proposing this large of a chunk of code while also adding a
foreign dependency is jumping in the deep end for new contributors :)


>
> Perhaps an email to the llvmdev list resurrecting the original thread
> would be a good idea, since people were interested in seeing actual code.
> I'll go ahead and do that so perhaps we can get more input.
>

Can't hurt.

-- Sean Silva


> I agree, splitting the RNG would be a good idea.
>
> - stephen
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 5:08 PM, Sean Silva <silvas at purdue.edu> wrote:
>
>> Was there ever consensus that we want to maintain this in LLVM? I just
>> looked back at the original thread on llvmdev, and it looked like basically:
>>
>> - A number of security folks having an inconclusive, wandering,
>> back-and-forth discussion about various security things that should have
>> been done on a security mailing list.
>> - Lots of "this seems maybe interesting, but ..." with the "but ..." not
>> clearly addressed in any way. Often times the "but ..." was an alternative
>> approach that would be more maintainable, effective, and/or fit in better
>> with existing deployment processes.
>> - No concrete use cases. Who is going to be deploying this? If nobody is
>> deploying, then how do we know it will be maintained? It seems like the
>> initial patch submitter has already jumped ship on this patch; doesn't
>> exactly inspire confidence.
>>
>> It seems like basically nobody who participated in the original
>> discussion on llvmdev is participating in this patch review either.
>> Especially the people who had doubts don't seem to be participating; those
>> doubts need to be addressed.
>>
>> Also, at the very least, adding the RNG should be split out into a
>> separate patch.
>>
>> -- Sean Silva
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 6:08 PM, Julian Lettner <julian.lettner at gmail.com
>> > wrote:
>>
>>>   Move patch forward to ToT.
>>>
>>> Hi rinon, ahomescu,
>>>
>>> http://llvm-reviews.chandlerc.com/D1802
>>>
>>> CHANGE SINCE LAST DIFF
>>>   http://llvm-reviews.chandlerc.com/D1802?vs=6581&id=6621#toc
>>>
>>> Files:
>>>   include/llvm/CodeGen/CommandFlags.h
>>>   include/llvm/MC/MCRegisterInfo.h
>>>   include/llvm/Support/RandomNumberGenerator.h
>>>   include/llvm/Target/TargetOptions.h
>>>   lib/CodeGen/LLVMBuild.txt
>>>   lib/CodeGen/SelectionDAG/ScheduleDAGRRList.cpp
>>>   lib/LTO/LTOCodeGenerator.cpp
>>>   lib/LTO/LTOModule.cpp
>>>   lib/Support/CMakeLists.txt
>>>   lib/Support/RandomNumberGenerator.cpp
>>>   lib/Target/X86/CMakeLists.txt
>>>   lib/Target/X86/NOPInsertion.cpp
>>>   lib/Target/X86/X86.h
>>>   lib/Target/X86/X86TargetMachine.cpp
>>>   test/CodeGen/X86/nop-insert-percentage.ll
>>>   test/CodeGen/X86/nop-insert.ll
>>>   test/CodeGen/X86/sched-rnd-test.ll
>>>   tools/llc/llc.cpp
>>>   tools/llvm-lto/llvm-lto.cpp
>>>   tools/lto/lto.cpp
>>>   tools/opt/opt.cpp
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> llvm-commits mailing list
>>> llvm-commits at cs.uiuc.edu
>>> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvm-commits
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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