Corporate Control vs. the 'Uncontrollable' C Language
Description
A screenshot of a tweet from user Louis Brauer in the 'C and Assembly Developers' community. The tweet presents a conspiracy-style joke, saying, 'The real reason, the US government doesn't want you to use C. And you thought it was because of "memory-safety"?'. Below the text is an infographic titled 'NSA Suggested Memory-Safe Programming Languages'. The graphic lists several languages and attributes their control to major tech corporations: Rust (Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc.), Go (Google), C# (Microsoft), Java (Oracle), Swift (Apple), and JavaScript (FAANG). In stark contrast, the bottom of the infographic shows the C programming language logo next to the word 'uncontrollable' in a bold, 3D font. The humor is a satirical commentary on the NSA's recent guidance advising developers to move to memory-safe languages. Instead of accepting the official reason of enhancing security, the meme posits a humorous conspiracy that the true motive is to push developers towards ecosystems controlled by large corporations. It champions C as a bastion of independence, a language governed by an international standards committee rather than a single corporate entity, making it 'uncontrollable' in this context. This resonates deeply with senior developers who value open standards and may be skeptical of the influence large tech companies wield over modern development ecosystems
Comments
18Comment deleted
The NSA promotes memory-safe languages because they're 'controlled.' Meanwhile, C is so uncontrollable that half its behavior is 'undefined' by its own standards committee, which is a level of chaotic freedom even government agencies can't handle
Sure, Rust has the borrow checker and Java has Oracle; C’s only regulator is undefined behavior - good luck subpoenaing that
After 20 years of debugging segfaults at 3am, you realize the NSA's push for memory-safe languages isn't about national security - it's about preventing developers from achieving true enlightenment through manual memory management and the spiritual journey of tracking down use-after-free bugs in production
Ah yes, the NSA's real concern with C isn't the buffer overflows or use-after-free vulnerabilities - it's that they can't call up Dennis Ritchie's estate to request a backdoor. Meanwhile, memory-safe languages come with built-in corporate surveillance as a feature, not a bug. Who needs memory safety when you have plausible deniability through segfaults?
Memory safety: swapping wild pointers for corporate leash holders who backtrace your every allocation
Funny how "memory-safe" reads like "procurement-safe"; C isn't unsafe, it's just the only language where the vendor is you
Procurement wants a vendor to hold accountable; C offers a standards committee and a core dump - hard to subpoena undefined behavior
Is Java controlled? Comment deleted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDRDova2uro Comment deleted
who control c++? Comment deleted
c Comment deleted
jokes aside... Comment deleted
C forever Comment deleted
Will they return to Ada? Comment deleted
US Dept of Defence likes this. Comment deleted
HolyC is controlled only by god Comment deleted
Only partially, as Brian Kernighan has not ascended yet. Comment deleted
Wait how is Rust controlled by Amazon, Microsoft, Google and fucking Huawei? Comment deleted