Problem - Kevin Tafuro

About the Authors
John Viega is a well-known security expert, founder and Chief Scientist of Secure
Software (www.securesoftware.com), and coauthor of Building Secure Software
(Addison Wesley) and Network Security with OpenSSL (O’Reilly). John is responsible
for numerous software security tools and is the original author of Mailman, the
GNU mailing list manager. He holds a B.A. and an M.S. in Computer Science from
the University of Virginia. Mr. Viega is also an Adjunct Professor of Computer
Science at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA) and a Senior Policy Researcher at the
Cyber Security Policy and Research Institute. He serves on the Technical Advisory
Board for the Open Web Applications Security Project. He also founded a Washington,
DC-area security interest group that conducts monthly lectures presented by
leading experts in the field (http://dc.securitygeeks.com). He is the author or coauthor
of over 80 technical publications, research papers, and trade articles.
Matt Messier, Director of Engineering at Secure Software, is a security authority who
has been programming for nearly two decades. Besides coauthoring Network Security
with OpenSSL, Matt coauthored RATS, the Safe C String Library, and EGADS,
an Entropy Gathering and Distribution System used for securely seeding pseudorandom
number generators. Prior to joining Secure Software, Matt worked for IBM
and Lotus on SmartSuite and Open32 for OS/2, gaining valuable experience with
source and assembly-level debugging techniques and operating system concepts.
Colophon
Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback
from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach
to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects.
The animal on the cover of Secure Programming Cookbook for C and C++ is a crested
porcupine. Crested porcupines (Hystrix cristata) are the largest porcupines on earth.
Adults can weigh as much as 50 pounds, and their average length is between 25 and
30 inches. They have been known to live over 20 years while in captivity.
The crested porcupine is covered with black bristly fur. But running down the top of
its head and neck is a crest of white bristly hairs that give way to an array of black
and white spines that cover the animal’s back, sides, and short tail. The short spines
on the tail are hollow, which makes them rattle when shaken.
Highly adaptable creatures, crested porcupines can live in forests, plantations, rocky
or mountainous areas, as well as deserts. They are found in Italy, Sicily, and along
the Mediterranean coast of Africa as far south as Tanzania and northern Congo.
They take shelter in caves, rock crevices, aardvark holes, or burrows they dig themselves.
These burrows are often extensive and can be used for many years.
Crested porcupines live in monogamous pairs and form family groups sharing
complex burrows. They are nocturnal and forage at night, moving along tracks or