Linked List: September 6, 2009

Colin Percival: ‘Complexity Is Insecurity’ 

Colin Percival:

Complexity can be thought of as a type of code smell: It doesn’t necessarily imply that there is a problem, but the presence of complexity is very strongly correlated with the presence of security vulnerabilities. In the design and construction of secure systems, it is important to not only consider mistakes which are guaranteed to cause problems, but to also consider factors which make it more likely that problems will arise — or, put another way, factors which make it harder to get things right.

(Via Alex Payne.)

Things Removed in Snow Leopard 

Good list from Jesper.

Andy Ihnatko, Hit by the WordPress Attack 

Andy Ihnatko, posting on his Posterous weblog, on being hit by the WordPress attack:

Why didn’t I update Wordpress? Because it was going to be a whole Thing. My version of WP came before the “auto-update” feature was installed. The whole procedure would have been like shampooing a wall-to-wall rug. I want to clean the rug, sure, but do I really want to move out ALL of the furniture? And all of the stuff piled up ON the furniture? Etc.