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Destabilize the Error::type_id function
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This commit destabilizes the `Error::type_id` function in the standard library.
This does so by effectively reverting #58048, restoring the `#[unstable]`
attribute. The security mailing list has recently been notified of a
vulnerability relating to the stabilization of this function. First stabilized
in Rust 1.34.0, a stable function here allows users to implement a custom
return value for this function:

    struct MyType;

    impl Error for MyType {
	fn type_id(&self) -> TypeId {
	    // Enable safe casting to `String` by accident.
	    TypeId::of::<String>()
	}
    }

This, when combined with the `Error::downcast` family of functions, allows
safely casting a type to any other type, clearly a memory safety issue! A
security announcement will be shortly posted to the security mailing list as
well as the Rust Blog, and when those links are available they'll be filled in
for this PR as well.

This commit simply destabilizes the `Error::type_id` which, although breaking
for users since Rust 1.34.0, is hoped to have little impact and has been deemed
sufficient to mitigate this issue for the stable channel. The long-term fate of
the `Error::type_id` API will be discussed at #60784.
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alexcrichton committed May 13, 2019
1 parent a9ec99f commit c47e2ef
Showing 1 changed file with 4 additions and 1 deletion.
5 changes: 4 additions & 1 deletion src/libstd/error.rs
Expand Up @@ -197,7 +197,10 @@ pub trait Error: Debug + Display {
fn source(&self) -> Option<&(dyn Error + 'static)> { None }

/// Gets the `TypeId` of `self`
#[stable(feature = "error_type_id", since = "1.34.0")]
#[doc(hidden)]
#[unstable(feature = "error_type_id",
reason = "this is memory unsafe to override in user code",
issue = "60784")]
fn type_id(&self) -> TypeId where Self: 'static {
TypeId::of::<Self>()
}
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