[Python-Dev] Status of the fix for the hash collision vulnerability

[Steven D'Aprano]

Victor Stinner wrote:

> - Marc Andre Lemburg proposes to fix the vulnerability directly in
> dict (for any key type). The patch raises an exception if a lookup
> causes more than 1000 collisions.


Am I missing something? How does this fix the vulnerability? It seems to me 
that the only thing this does is turn one sort of DOS attack into another sort 
of DOS attack: hostile users will just cause hash collisions until an 
exception is raised and the application falls over.

Catching these exceptions, and recovering from them (how?), would be the 
responsibility of the application author. Given that developers are unlikely 
to ever see 1000 collisions by accident, or even realise that it could happen, 
I don't expect that many people will do that -- until they personally get bitten.



-- 
Steven