The point DJB made was this: It was possible for a skilled C programmer to make a server with few security holes. Even though that’s not as relevant now, with Rust having most of the speed of C and security built in, it did make the Internet a safer place for many years. I remember using Qmail and DJBdns to make the servers at the small company I worked for at the time more secure.
I haven’t noticed antipathy, but I have noticed skepticism. I assume people with outlier records in any field get some extra inspection.
If it becomes jealousy-fueled not-picking, those people are insecure jerks. But unusual track records are worth understanding.
It's not! It's the foundation of all dev AI products marketing.
It’s not normal for software to be so poorly written, one doubts the claim that a security bug hasn’t been found in over three years. If one thinks the claim of no security bugs of consequence in three years is dubious, feel free to do a security audit of MaraDNS (or DjbDNS, which I also will take responsibility for even though my software is, if you will, a “competitor” to DjbDNS), and report any bugs you find.
Speaking of DJB, DjbDNS has had a few security bugs over the years (but not that many), but I’m maintaining a fork of DjbDNS with all of the security bugs I know about fixed:
https://github.com/samboy/ndjbdns
I am saying all this as someone who has had significant enough issues with DJB’s software, I ended up writing my own DNS server so I didn’t have to use his server (I might not had done so if DjbDNS was public domain in 2001, but oh well).
(As a matter of etiquette, it’s a little rude to claim someone is saying something “dubious”, especially when the claim is backed up with solid evidence [multiple audits didn’t find anything of significance in the last year, as I documented above], unless you have solid evidence the claim is dubious, e.g. a significant security hole more recent than three years old)
Can you back that claim up with at least some sort of theory? Because it doesn't match my perception of the real world, nor does it match my mental model of how CVEs happen.
https://samboy.github.io/MaraDNS/webpage/DNS.security.compar...
Also, my sister post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48112042
I had believed (and continue to hold) DNS software containing, e.g., an authoritative DNS server which lacks native TCP or DNSSEC support falls squarely into the "narrowly scoped" bucket and would appreciate if you'd not try to decide my opinion for me on any given project in the future.
In an era when DNS was otherwise a monoculture, djbdns was a welcome breath of fresh air.
You literally write fewer instead of none, therefore agreeing with the sentence you claimed to say is meaningless.