[zeromq-dev] Vulnerability of devices to incoming messages

[Pieter Hintjens]

On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 8:37 PM, Matt Weinstein
<matt_weinstein at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Here's one argument against this:
> If you forward a malformed stream to an XREP you have a design flaw, and you
> should fix it.  Proper input checking should be done.

This is a good point.  The standard devices could check their input
before sending it on.  However they don't know the type of the backend
socket, do they?  So they can't determine whether it needs a multipart
message or not.  Sorry if I'm not getting this right...

> Making the traffic disappear without any indication will make error
> detection and correction much more difficult, especially when dealing with
> these exotic socket types.

Indeed.  Silently dropping the message seems wrong.

> If you do decide to implement the non-strict form, it is still an error IMO
> and should return an error indication, even if it does not cause massive
> destruction within the environment.

OK, I'll leave the branch open until we get consensus on this.

Thanks
Pieter