[plt-scheme] Re: eq and hashing

Matthew Flatt wrote:

> Zbyszek Jurkiewicz wrote:
> 
>>On Thu, 29 May 2003, Matthew Flatt wrote:
>>
>>... we cannot protect against malicious programs, otherwise the
>>programming language would become too weak to be useful in practice.
> 
> 
> To be clear, I have in mind the kind of protection that Unix provides
> against malicious processes. ...


>>It is not hard to write a simple program
>>which tries to allocate infinite list, practically blocking other
>>processes.
> 
> 
> That is a problem in the default configuration of PLT Scheme. But if
> you configure with --enable-account when building from source, then
> it's possible to thwart such attacks using `custodian-limit-memory'.

I have a philosophical question, Gentlemen.
Why do you call such programs "malicious"?

For me they are simply stupid. In the worst case. Typically they are
erroneous programs. Now, can any system or language processor protect
itself agains errors?...
Of course the *resource* protection is necessary in all cases, including
coorect programs, but this is a job for Civil Lawyers and Commerce Chambers,
not for the Crime Prevention Departments...

Sorry for interrupting your interesting technicities by useless philosophy.

Jerzy Karczmarczuk