[Info-vax] Whither VMS?

[Bob Koehler]

In article <5ju4ah.m8l.ln at gw1>, Jordi Guillaumes i Pons <send.me at no.spam> writes:
> 
> Of course, that could'nt happen in a VAX. All you would get is a ACCVIO, 
> since VAX has a exec bit for each page, and the stack should not be exec 
> utable. But on the x86 they have that kind of protection only recently.

   This is simply not true.  Once again:  the exec bit on VAX is only
   a hint to the linker, it is not enforced at runtime.
 
> I don't know how does this apply to Alpha nor iA64. But on a purely 
> stack-based, non-execution protected environment like whatever OS on 
> x86, the NULL-terminated strings are an exploit waiting to happen.

   On IA64, and I think some Alpha, the exec bit is enforced at run
   time.