# Security doesn't respect abstraction boundaries

DevFeed: [Security doesn't respect abstraction boundaries](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/security-doesn-t-respect-abstraction-boundaries-21902.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://blog.nelhage.com/2010/03/security-doesnt-respect-abstraction/>)

Author: Nelson Elhage

Published: 2010-03-13T20:20:26Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Nelson Elhage](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/nelson-elhage.md>)

Topics: [Security](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/security.md>), [Encryption](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/encryption.md>), [Cryptography](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cryptography.md>)

Tags: [abstraction](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/abstraction.md>), [encryption](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/encryption.md>), [security](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/security.md>), [xor](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/xor.md>)

## AI overview

The article argues that computer security problems often cross or violate abstraction boundaries. It introduces one-time-pad encryption as an example and begins describing how weaknesses outside the encryption abstraction can undermine an otherwise secure system.

## Source excerpt

The fundamental tool of any engineering discipline is the notion of abstraction. If we can build a set of useful, easily-described behaviors out of a complex system, we can build other systems on top of those pieces, without having to understand to worry about the full complexity of the underlying system. Without this notion of abstracting away complexity, we'd be stuck writing our webapps in assembly code - if not toggling them in to our frontpanels after painstakingly translating them into hex by hand.