From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1PQniL-000777-Pk for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 09 Dec 2010 21:07:46 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 59501E0B91 for ; Thu, 9 Dec 2010 21:07:45 +0000 (UTC) Received: from lo.gmane.org (lo.gmane.org [80.91.229.12]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E68A7E0A88 for ; Thu, 9 Dec 2010 20:21:06 +0000 (UTC) Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PQmz8-00053P-T1 for gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org; Thu, 09 Dec 2010 21:21:02 +0100 Received: from ip68-231-22-224.ph.ph.cox.net ([68.231.22.224]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Thu, 09 Dec 2010 21:21:02 +0100 Received: from 1i5t5.duncan by ip68-231-22-224.ph.ph.cox.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Thu, 09 Dec 2010 21:21:02 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org From: Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> Subject: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Firefox/Firefox-bin & Flash Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 20:20:53 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: References: Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: ip68-231-22-224.ph.ph.cox.net User-Agent: Pan/0.133 (House of Butterflies; GIT 25ed40d branch-testing) Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Archives-Salt: 54ebdc5d-0b80-4519-b5b2-a82a6c1a1f50 X-Archives-Hash: 9c70da71028d4c263f2a1ae1bb52748a Claes Gyllensw=C3=A4rd posted on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:09:44 +0100 as excer= pted: > I haven't kept strictly up to date, but it's my understanding that sinc= e > then a new 64bit version has been released. And some new security > problems, it's flash after all, and two more releases I think. So > there's a "proper" 64-bit version out, if you consider flash/binary > proper. Yes. AFAIK, there's another 64-bit flash beta out. But meanwhile, there's a problem with beta glibc and flash (both 32-bit=20 and 64-bit), where flash is depending on officially "undefined" behavior=20 as if it was behind, and the new (still unreleased upstream) glibc change= s=20 the officially undefined behavior, breaking flash. But the behavior has been undefined for years and years (tho until now th= e=20 actual glibc behavior had happened to remain the same), valgrind and othe= r=20 memory analysis tools have been warning about it for years and years, and= =20 flash was never fixed. So now we know that either it had so many warning= s=20 they couldn't care about this one, or they never ran it thru such checker= s=20 in the first place, a rather serious problem for something as security=20 exposed as flash obviously is, on millions of machines out there. That would seem to go some way to explaining all the security holes it ha= s=20 had recently -- they apparently never ran it thru memory analysis tools=20 designed to catch such problems. Obviously, my take is a bit biased, but yet another reason I'm glad I=20 don't do that servantware. Even when/if the situation is fixed, that=20 won't change the fact that flash is now known NOT to use regular security= =20 analysis tools to help them find and plug such problems before they=20 release, so who knows how many more security issues wait to be found? > On a related note, the alternative flash player lightspark has reached = a > "actually useful for youtube some of the time" status, and the current > RC is supposed to improve this. Help me flattr the guys lightspark blog > posts and you can soon ditch another binary package. :D FWIW, I do have gnash installed, tho I've not tried lightspark, but don't= =20 use it all /that/ much, as I use the downloader for youtube, and on most=20 (but not all) other sites, flash is mostly ads, anyway. Rather, I tend t= o=20 pick another site if I need to. Sometimes manufacturers lose my buying=20 dollars as a result because I can't see what they're product specs are du= e=20 to flash, but oh, well... --=20 Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman