wooooo! awesome beginning quote:

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing can ever be made.

ÑImmanuel Kant

so far, i think this is the best book i've read.



Program organization

Change strategy

Buy versus build decisions

Major data structures

Key algorithms

Major objects

Generic functionality

Error processing (corrective or detective)

Active or passive robustness

Fault tolerance

rules of security architecture:

"Start by asking questions

Select a destination before stepping on the gas

Decide how much security is "just enough"

Employ standard engineering techniques

Identify your assumptions

Engineer security in from day one

Design with the enemy in mind

Understand and respect the chain of trust

Be stingy with privileges

Test any proposed action against policy

Build in appropriate levels of fault tolerance

Address error-handling issues appropriately

Degrade gracefully

Fail safely

Choose safe default actions and values

Stay on the simple side

Modularize thoroughly

Don't rely on obfuscation

Maintain minimal retained state

Adopt practical measures users can live with

Make sure some individual is accountable

Self-limit program consumption of resources

Make sure it's possible to reconstruct events

Eliminate "weak links"

Build in multiple layers of defense

Treat an application as a holistic whole

Reuse code known to be secure

Don't rely on off-the-shelf software for security

Don't let security needs overwhelm democratic principles

Remember to ask, "What did I forget?""


author says goal should be for software to be "just secure enough"

:"A good theory," he said, "should be as simple as possibleÑbut no simpler.":



"o have a realistic chance of building software that cannot easily be subverted, you must not think of your application as being merely the compiled lines of code in front of you. You must, rather, adopt the notion of a holistic application system.

If you don't look at the entire set of components engaged during the execution of the application (including the server operating system, any supporting software, the network environment, and especially the real-life operations factors we've stressed so much), then whatever security measures you choose to adopt will eventually be surmounted by an attacker who does look at things that way.

If you do adopt this holistic view and successfully apply the principles we've presented throughout this book, your software will have a fighting chance to withstand the kinds of attacks that it must face today and, we believe, well into the future."