Re: CVS commit: src/crypto/external/bsd/netpgp/dist

["Perry E. Metzger" <perry%piermont.com@localhost>]

Alistair Crooks <agc%pkgsrc.org@localhost> writes:
>> Often, when one is writing code like this, one assumes something like
>> the idea that time_t is always, say, four bytes. Then, later, someone
>> like Christos comes along and turns the value into an eight byte
>> quantity and assumptions fail. It is nice to have the assumptions fail
>> in a nice loud way at compile time. This is not the same as checking
>> that pi has not changed.
>
> The check was for time_t's being *at least 4 bytes* (openpgpsdk was
> compiled on Solaris 10 update something which has 64bit time_t's) -
> see the quoted text above.

I'm not that concerned about the particular assertions in this
code. You've already expressed your opinion of the overall quality, and
doubtless it is quite low. I'm speaking more generally of the fact that
it is reasonable to pepper security critical code with various checks,
even for things that are seemingly unlikely to change.

Perry
-- 
Perry E. Metzger                perry%piermont.com@localhost