Contributed by tbert on 2014-05-05 from the one-pufferfish-in-every-port dept.

OpenBSD users and developers know to appreciate that our favorite operating system is a sanely constructed, modern Unix with a well deserved reputation for an emphasis on security. That is perhaps one of the reasons why the LibreSSL initiative has caused so much excitement, to the point where several people have independently started efforts to port the OpenBSD project's work in progress LibreSSL code to other platforms.

Now blogger Insane Coder comes out with a stern warning to LibreSSL porters in two articles (here and here).

The main takeway is:

OpenBSD functions may be more secure than counterparts elsewhere

OpenBSD functions may be more secure than counterparts elsewhere This is a generic issue where OpenBSD is deleting some silly platform wrappers, or reducing multiple functions calls with glue logic down to a single standardized function. OpenBSD is depending on the security of their implementation of said function, while the porters have no idea that their platform is less secure, and have no inkling that something is wrong, because there are no compiler errors about missing functions in this scenario.

or, to paraphrase,

A lot of work has gone into making OpenBSD secure. Don't randomly assume that the platform you're porting to has the same code sanitation and general sanity checks in place.

Perhaps it's time that Theo de Raadt's (deraadt@) Security Mitigation Techniques: An update after 10 years became required reading for operating system developers everywhere?