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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 27th, 2023

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  • Well they said .NET Framework, and I also wouldn’t be surprised if they more or less wrapped that up - .NET Framework specifically means the old implementation of the CLR, and it’s been pretty much superseded by an implementation just called .NET, formerly known as .NET Core (definitely not confusing at all, thanks Microsoft). .NET Framework was only written for Windows, hence the need for Mono/Xamarin on other platforms. In contrast, .NET is cross-platform by default.



  • This is a use-after-free, which should be impossible in safe Rust due to the borrow checker. The only way for this to happen would be incorrect unsafe code (still possible, but dramatically reduced code surface to worry about) or a compiler bug. To allocate heap space in safe Rust, you have to use types provided by the language like Box, Rc, Vec, etc. To free that space (in Rust terminology, dropping it by using drop() or letting it go out of scope) you must be the owner of it and there may be current borrows (i.e. no references may exist). Once the variable is droped, the variable is dead so accessing it is a compiler error, and the compiler/std handles freeing the memory.

    There’s some extra semantics to some of that but that’s pretty much it. These kind of memory bugs are basically Rust’s raison d’etre - it’s been carefully designed to make most memory bugs impossible without using unsafe. If you’d like more information I’d be happy to provide!









  • The issue is not just that a bad update went out. Freak accidents can happen. Software is complicated and you can never be 100% sure. The problem is the specifics. A fat finger should never be able to push a bad update to a system in customers’ hands, forget a system easily capable of killing people in a multitude of ways. I’m not quite as critical as the above commentor but this is a serious issue that should raise major questions about their culture and procedures.

    This isn’t just some website where a fat finger at worst means the site is down for a while (assuming you do the bare minimum and back up your db). This is a vehicle. That’s what they meant about the CAN bus - not that that’s really a concern when the infotainment system just gets bricked, but that they have such lax procedures around software that touches a safety-critical system.

    Having systems in place to ensure only tested, known good builds are pushed is pretty damn basic safety practice. Swiss cheese model. If they can’t even handle the basics, what other bad practices do they have?

    Again, not that I think this is necessarily as bad as the other person - perhaps this is the only mistake they’ve made in their safety procedures and otherwise they’re industry leaders - we don’t know that yet. But this is extremely concerning and until proven otherwise should be investigated and treated as a very serious safety violation. Safety first.