[tlug] Notes on the Nomikai

[John Fremlin <john@example.com>]

There was a rare moment of on-topic discussion about Linux (RCU was 
mentioned, wow!) at the nomikai before it was interrupted by the usual 
noisy nonsense -- I hope I'm not the only kernel contributor on this 
list, and anyway you should all be interested because it's about 
security :-)

This strategy of turning a NULL pointer deref into an exploit by 
changing the kernel's personality (the surprising step we were trying to 
remember) is getting popular.

http://blog.cr0.org/2009/06/bypassing-linux-null-pointer.html

Two serious exploits so far, I believe. For example, 
http://blog.cr0.org/2009/08/linux-null-pointer-dereference-due-to.html

My apologies for posting something actually about Linux itself rather 
than luserspace to the list, so to make up for it, the example of an 
English sentence we saw on the learn-English program at the Irish bar, 
"Ben Foster the guy as injury scuppers England chance" should have been 
"the fall guy" 
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/article6790791.ece>