[tor-talk] secure and simple network time (hack)

Jacob Appelbaum jacob at appelbaum.net
Fri Apr 12 17:56:43 UTC 2013


adrelanos:
> Why was tlsdate written in C?

There are a few reasons:

  The first prototype was in Python (patching tlslite)
    however, I wanted it to be portable without patching libraries
  Jailing and/or sandboxing is easier without a system wide interpreter
    eg: Python
  Droppings privileges is straight forward in C
  Setting capabilities is easier on a binary by binary basis
    This is easily solved for say, Golang programs.
  I wanted to directly interface with many relevant libraries
   Currently it supports polarSSL and OpenSSL - patches welcome

C is a perfectly fine programming language - I've considered writing it
again in Golang. I may make a feature for feature compatible version at
some point in the future.

All the best,
Jacob


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