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Teensy ELF Executables for Linux - Discussion

Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 2:19 pm
by skeen
I just read;
Teensy ELF Executables for Linux

And while it's rather cool, to be able to pack the ELF headers into one another, I'm actually quite shocked that Linux accepts the mangled, and non-conformant ELF headers.

Does anyone know why this is the case? - That is, why would Linux be interested in running malformed, non-standard programs?
Wouldn't it be smarter, to issue an error about the malformed, non-standard headers, such that the, possibly unaware, developer can fix this? - Also why doesn't Linux use all the ELF header information?

Re: Teensy ELF Executables for Linux - Discussion

Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 2:35 pm
by Combuster
The tools don't produce such things, so bothering with a pedantic check on something you wouldn't see or use anyway is a bit unnecessary.

Also, if you can drop a binary like that onto the system, you can also run any other binary so it's not a meaningful security concern either.