On Tue, 23 Jan 1996 gback@facility.cs.utah.edu wrote: [much elided stuff]
Now suppose, I fake a compiler (or I have a malicious compiler) and I generate by hand malicious byte code such that in the symbol tables, tricky_pointer and data have the same offset.
[more stuff taken out] Godmar Said:
To my knowledge, the Java, and Java bytecode does not imply any memory layout. I doubt it makes sense to demand to check that 'offset do not overlap in memory'.
Both of you are correct if you look carefully at the assumptions. Rich assumes that you have a 'malicious compiler'. Godmar is right that Java does not utilize pointers in the byte code. What would make the entire scenario work is a malicious interpreter or a 'NotJava Browser'(TM) that allowed malicious code to be executed. Couple a bad compiler and a bad interpreter and you are in buisness (nasty business that is). Matt