From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [IPv6:2600:3c01:e000:146::1]) by inbox.vuxu.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1E022272DC for ; Tue, 21 May 2024 04:47:55 +0200 (CEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3746F43B80; Tue, 21 May 2024 12:47:50 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mcvoy.com (mcvoy.com [192.169.23.250]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 7024B43B23 for ; Tue, 21 May 2024 12:47:44 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mcvoy.com (Postfix, from userid 3546) id 9713835E919; Mon, 20 May 2024 19:47:43 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 20 May 2024 19:47:43 -0700 From: Larry McVoy To: Rob Pike Message-ID: <20240521024743.GE25728@mcvoy.com> References: <51CC9A0D-122C-4A3D-8BAF-C249489FB817@serissa.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30) Message-ID-Hash: VIO7E3NFULGRSXYN5HXV3ESR5UV5JV27 X-Message-ID-Hash: VIO7E3NFULGRSXYN5HXV3ESR5UV5JV27 X-MailFrom: lm@mcvoy.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: TUHS main list X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: A fuzzy awk. List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: I think the title might go to my OS prof, Bart Miller. He did a paper https://www.paradyn.org/papers/fuzz.pdf that named it that in 1990. On Tue, May 21, 2024 at 11:56:30AM +1000, Rob Pike wrote: > Ron Hardin was doing this to Dennis's C compiler in the 1980s, well before > 1998. And I believe Doug McIlroy was generating random regular expressions > to compare different implementations. It's probably impossible to decide > who invented fuzzing, so the credit will surely go to the person who named > it. > > -rob > > > On Tue, May 21, 2024 at 12:09???AM Serissa wrote: > > > Well this is obviously a hot button topic. AFAIK I was nearby when > > fuzz-testing for software was invented. I was the main advocate for hiring > > Andy Payne into the Digital Cambridge Research Lab. One of his little > > projects was a thing that generated random but correct C programs and fed > > them to different compilers or compilers with different switches to see if > > they crashed or generated incorrect results. Overnight, his tester filed > > 300 or so bug reports against the Digital C compiler. This was met with > > substantial pushback, but it was a mostly an issue that many of the reports > > traced to the same underlying bugs. > > > > Bill McKeemon expanded the technique and published "Differential Testing > > of Software" > > https://www.cs.swarthmore.edu/~bylvisa1/cs97/f13/Papers/DifferentialTestingForSoftware.pdf > > > > Andy had encountered the underlying idea while working as an intern on the > > Alpha processor development team. Among many other testers, they used an > > architectural tester called REX to generate more or less random sequences > > of instructions, which were then run through different simulation chains > > (functional, RTL, cycle-accurate) to see if they did the same thing. > > Finding user-accessible bugs in hardware seems like a good thing. > > > > The point of generating correct programs (mentioned under the term LangSec > > here) goes a long way to avoid irritating the maintainers. Making the test > > cases short is also maintainer-friendly. The test generator is also in a > > position to annotate the source with exactly what it is supposed to do, > > which is also helpful. > > > > -L > > > > > > -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat