Stale pointers (was: What's the difference?)

[Buck Calabro <Buck.Calabro@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>I say Bad Things, because you may have a
>>stale pointer left on the stack,
>>and NOT get a MCH3601, but some other
>>unpredictable failure as the called code
>>works on some other part of memory it doesn't own.

>This has always bothered me.  Couldn't a piece
>of malware purposely wreak havoc by doing exactly this?

Well, from a generic security standpoint, the hacker needs to
compile/restore a program onto the system and insert it into a job stream
where there are stale pointers to be manipulated.      If the system is that
open, there are easier ways to make a mess than hoping to find stale
pointers.
  --buck