On Target Testing:Has the time come for in-project and on-target C compiler validation?

The Wicked Witch of the West

Jan 2022

If your bedtime reading includes ISO/IEC 61508 [functional Safety] Part 3 [software requirements], you will obviously have seen in the annexes A and C reference to a “certificated compiler” as highly recommended for higher SIL level projects. That is becoming most of them these days so certified compilers are being required more often. read on....

You can’t patent software… or can you?

Sam Cleary

Jan 2019

Can you patent Software in the UK in 2019? Addressing one of the most common misconceptions in the electronics industry relating to intellectual property, Sam Cleary (European Patent Attorney at Dehns) provides insight on the elusive (or not so elusive) patent for software-based inventions. Perhaps getting protection for your ideas isn’t beyond the realms of possibility, even if those ideas exist in software implementations rather than in the hardware itself.. read on....

Subversive C: A guerilla guide to fooling your tools

The Wicked Witch of the West

Jan 2019

These days there is no shortage of comment from bloggerati on safer or more secure C. Now Phaedrus brings you something different. Welcome to the Subversive C spot, where The Wicked Witch of the West shows you how both compilers and tools can be fooled by contrived coding, often with surprising consequences. read on....

Refresh my Memory…

By Flora McDonald
September 2018

Flora has had some real problems with the planned CoreSight configuration article (postponed till later). However she has revisited something that is often overlooked and almost universally under-rated - JTAG memory access. It sounds a bit boring (read memory, write memory, rinse, repeat) but read this tutorial to uncover some clever things that have been overlaid on top of this.>read on....

Press Here to Kill Everyone.....

Gareth Greenwood September 2018

The Internet of Things (IoT) is growing. If you’re relaxed about that, maybe you should think again and read the latest book from security guru Bruce Schneier: Click Here to Kill Everybody: Survival in a Hyper-Connected World however whilst much of this has been known since the worm in 1988. the size and complexity of the problem has grown. > read on...

IoT – Internet of Things/Its only technology

By Kilroy
July 2018

We hear horror stories in the media on such a regular basis about security breaches that we have possibly become immune to them unless like me you are in the industry. It never ceases to amaze me that large can make such fundamental mistakes, but I guess that what keeps in me a job! I am an independent Senior Security Consultant, grey hair, needs glasses to read the laptop screen, although happy to say not much spread around the middle, but enough! Who, has been in the security industry since before it became trendy. The last newsletter prompted me to think back and ask myself why we keep making the same security faux pax...... .>read on....

Driving fearlessly for the future

By Flora McDonald
July 2018

Profanity is an odd thing. My children come out with stuff that would make a docker blush and, yet, it is a rare occasion indeed when I resort to a curse. My parents almost never swore; I think in all my years my Mum has only ever sworn twice and although my Dad did swear a little more (and not the obscenities that even the BBC seem to think is OK) it always reserved for the car. I remember, as a youngster, going on a family outing and my Dad would always make sure he had his toolbox in the boot of the car because “the ruddy thing” would breakdown before we got to our destination and he would have to get out and fix it at the roadside. That’s when Mum would tell us all to block our ears. .>read on....

Getting your IoT development under control

By Flora McDonald
June 2018

The whole world seems to be going IoT crazy at the moment with Internet connected fridges that tell me if I’ve run out of milk (because I’m too busy updating my status to open the door), Internet connected toasters that let me set how brown my toast is via an app on my smartphone and Internet enabled door bells that tell ne’er-do-wells that I’m not home right now and the nearest police are (according to their Twitter feed) at least 20 minutes away. All of these are making my life more fulfilled whilst..... .>read on....

How to remove all bugs from software!

By Chris Hills Feb 2018

There is a faily simple way lf not having any "bugs" in software. This solution has been used by many for decades (saving both time and money in the process. So lets make 2018 the year we finally get rid of "bugs" in software .>read on....

Forth Vs C Vs Ruby Vs Ada Vs....

by Chris Hills and contributors

December 2017.

A fascinating article on why "my language is best" and why none of them are. Where are the other 450 languages Ada was supposed to replace? Why isn't everyone using SPARK? .>read on....

Windows 7 instalation and maintenance

The Wicked Witch of the West

March 2017

The Wicked Witch in her work in setting up and maintaining some MS Windows 7 computers, has written some notes which may be of interest to development teams (or their IT support depts) who are not rushing to Win10. The project was for a compiler validation exercise, where you have to be very precise in the setup which often leads to some deeper questions being asked read on....

Go Forth and Design your own Language
By Juegen Pintaske January 2017

A fascinating article on the lexicon of writing your own programming language and an introduction to FORTH .>read on....

Torvolds and ARM
By Roger Sheperd of Chipless December 2016

Chris is a great campaigner against the religion that open source software is inherently better and more secure than closed source. However, at times I he goes too far, and assumes anyone from the open-source community can’t be talking sense. One case is Chris’s recent reaction to Linus Torvalds’ commentss.>read on....

Tradeshows and conferences:
Why bother isn’t it all on the ‘net?
By Chris Hills January 2016

Why bother with Trade shows and conferences?  Aren’t they just full of salesmen trying to make commission and all the information is on the Internet anyway?  Well, not exactly and it is not a simple as it sounds.  This became obvious as I attended a raft of conferences and trade shows over the last 5 months.>read on....

Elliptic curve cryptography - now comes the paranoia (and legal action)

Gareth Greenwood January 2016

After last month’s missive in these pages, your author wondered whether his article might have been a little complacent. Probably it wasn’t, but some other developments have put things in an alternative light.... > read on...

Chipping away the Rust – Part1: Avoiding memory errors

The Wicked Witch of the West

January 2016

TWW signed out last year with an heads-up piece on Mozilla's new language Rust. This month she gets into some details. Rust fans speak of the trifecta of Rust which refers to its safety, speed and concurrency. Let's deal with speed first. > read on....

The weather forecast: today there is cloud, tomorrow there might not be…
By Chris Hills December 2015

This article discusses the IoT is not static, everything changes. The cloud is virtual and, like real clouds, it can move or evaporate altogether leaving you with nothing. In some cases the cloud will move location or change ownership and the new owners change the rules. You may get caught out or locked out if your cloud services evaporate>read on....

What the NSA does not want you to know

Gareth Greenwood December 2015

A recent article in ArsTechnica reports that NSA can break 512-bit elliptic curve cryptographic keys to facilitate “man-in-the-middle” attacks on internet communications. Apparently, to initiate key-exchange dialogues, most internet servers use numbers generated from only a limited set of elliptic curves..... > read on...

The Wicked Witch of the West attacks RUST [Part 1] December 2015

The Mozilla Foundation has become the latest outfit trying to provide a language that extends C without creating the disadvantages of C's successors, C++, Java and C#. The language, called RUST, has an eclectic approach to language design, citing many earlier languages as influences. Mozilla has supported the development of RUST as a language for its future client/server products. > read on....