[Novalug] "taint"

Bonnie Dalzell bdalzell@qis.net
Sat Mar 21 11:17:28 EDT 2015


On Sat, 21 Mar 2015, Beartooth via Novalug wrote:

>
> 	I know lots of meanings for the word, in lots of contexts, but not 
> one relevant to computing. Would some knowing Friendly Alpha Plus Technoid 
> (FAPT) kindly expatiate discursively? In particular, why the implication of 
> incomestibility (in case of food) or unreliability (in case of evidence in 
> court)? Is there a connection to trojans? Malware? Bug-induced vulnerability? 
> All of the above?
>
>

perl cgi scripts that serve actions via web pages are at risk for being 
hacked by someone entering a command into a web form rather than the 
expected response - for example a command to the operating system to erase 
all the files on the computer rather than the expected email address, so 
input to your perl script from across the internet is to be considered 
risky or "tainted" until the program takes some steps to filter out 
dangerous responses.

yet another example of computer languages using a common word in a manner 
that is specialized and could be confusing.

Wikipedia "Taint Checking"

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taint_checking

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                        Bonnie Dalzell, MA
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