Founder Mode

The code/data rhetoric is not exclusively an earmark of Lisp. A primary concern in security are situations in which what is intended to be data allows for a surprising malicious use whereby it effectively becomes a way to program behaviors into the software which processes the data.

For instance, Winamp being exploited by loading a specially crafted MP3 playlist file is an instance of data becoming code; no Lisp in sight. Code being a flipside of data, in the context of security, is simply the consequence of the Von Neumann model.

Graham is arguing for compartments; exactly why we use containers and such. The main idea is that the passenger cabin should be sandboxed away from the cockpit, which isn't earth-shattering.

Where he mentions Lisp is this:

> The defense that does work is to keep code and data in separate places. Then there is no way to compromise code by playing tricks with data. Garbage-collected languages like Perl and Lisp do this, and as a result are immune from buffer overflow attacks.

This point seems bungled. Garbage collection is no panacea. Bugs in a garbage collected run-time can expose applications to exploitable attacks. The advantage in Perl and Lisp is that the application programmer is not writing low-level buffer manipulation routines from scratch. That stuff is in the language run time, where we debug the low-level implementation code once, and have thousands of applications use the debugged thing. If a hole is found, we fix it once, and close the issue in thousands of apps once they upgrade to the new run-time.

Garbage collected languages do not necessarily keep code and data in separate places. Moreover, non-garbage-collected languages do that. The C language can easily be implemented in a conforming manner such that the data areas (automatic storage (a.k.a. stack) and dynamic (malloc) are not executable. C keeps code and data separate. Functions are not objects. In some C implementations, like certain DSP chips, functions are in a separate space; you cannot cast a function pointer to char * and access the function image, because the resulting pointer will be interpreted in a different memory area. Of course, C data can contain pointers to functions, which can be redirected if overwritten.

Lisp data can also contain function pointers: e.g. a closure object with a pointer to code and to an environment. If that is stored in a heap somewhere where an array is also stored, and the run-time has a bug which allows array overrun, it could perhaps be exploited.

Right, but on the other side, in the military they told us: "You can delegate authority, but you can't delegate responsibility." If part of the CEO is to be a manager for the C-suite, then he needs to be able to evaluate how the CxO is behaving as a manager; and that would seem to imply looking 2 or 3 levels down to see what's going on beneath them.

That's not to say the CEO should go around randomly countermanding orders and giving new ones. The CxO can't do their job that way. But it does mean that the CEO should have a clear picture about what's going on, form their own opinions, and either give guidance / constructive criticism or fire where appropriate.

This philosophy of involvement follows through the entire org structure not just from CEO to the farthest position down the org tree.

Let's not let this be a rug to sweep poorly-behaving founders behavior's under, as there are plenty of those out there (key: successful founders).

Probably a great example of founder mode?

But the brain does not walk down and presses the 'r' key itself, that would make the finger redundant, and it would be a distraction for the brain. The brain also doesn't talk to the finger and tell it how to move to the 'r' key step by step, as that would be micro-management and piss the finger off.

What the brain needs to do is to enthuse the finger so that the finger acts in a way the brain would have acted - the "finger as the extended brain".

Now a good leader can manage to enthuse not just one finger, but 20 "fingers" - and all their transitive reports. (No wonder successful biz leaders are similar to cult/sect gurus that can seem to distort reality.)