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It is embarrassing for glibc not to check for overflow in calloc implementation prior to 2002. It is not only a security flaw but also violation of C Standards (even the first version ratified in 1989, usually referred to as C89).

The standard reads as follows:

  void *calloc(size_t nmemb, size_t size);

  The calloc function allocates space for an array of nmemb objects, each of whose size is size.[...]
and,

  The calloc function returns either a null pointer or a pointer to the allocated space.
So if it cannot allocate space for an array of nmemb objects, each of whose size is size, then it has to return null pointer.



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