It is definitely in theory possible to fix all the bugs. It is even in theory possible to make a box that will autonomously[1] fix all the bugs. The box consists of a theorem statement saying “attackers cannot breach the system”, a proof checker, a sufficiently-but-not-unboundedly good code & proof model, and the instruction to prove the theorem statement while minimizing behavioral change, finding and fixing all bugs required to do this along the way. I am working on this box. The biggest question in my mind is whether we can get the capabilities in the right order to get this box in time.
Provided the box has the access to update the software, we have an adequate model of the hardware, the attacker model is software only and relatively standard (e.g., attacker is purely remote and can send and receive network packets), and we have a weak proxy for attacker-controlled action (something that never happens under normal operation, that we expect any attacker could in theory do, e.g., wipe the hard drive, send secret files directly over the network)
It is definitely in theory possible to fix all the bugs. It is even in theory possible to make a box that will autonomously [1] fix all the bugs. The box consists of a theorem statement saying “attackers cannot breach the system”, a proof checker, a sufficiently-but-not-unboundedly good code & proof model, and the instruction to prove the theorem statement while minimizing behavioral change, finding and fixing all bugs required to do this along the way. I am working on this box. The biggest question in my mind is whether we can get the capabilities in the right order to get this box in time.
Provided the box has the access to update the software, we have an adequate model of the hardware, the attacker model is software only and relatively standard (e.g., attacker is purely remote and can send and receive network packets), and we have a weak proxy for attacker-controlled action (something that never happens under normal operation, that we expect any attacker could in theory do, e.g., wipe the hard drive, send secret files directly over the network)