Mismorphism: The Heart of the Weird Machine

Mismorphisms—instances where predicates take on different truth values across different interpretations of reality (notably, different actors’ perceptions of reality and the actual reality)—are the source of weird instructions. These weird instructions are tiny code snippets or gadgets that present the exploit programmer with unintended computational capabilities. Collectively, they constitute the weird machine upon which the exploit program runs. That is, a protocol or parser vulnerability is evidence of a weird machine, which, in turn, is evidence of an underlying mismorphism. This paper seeks to address vulnerabilities at the mismorphism layer.