[42341] in Cypherpunks
Re: Linux security issues
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aleph One)
Thu Oct 26 02:27:29 1995
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 01:23:01 -0500 (CDT)
From: Aleph One <aleph1@dfw.net>
To: don@cs.byu.edu
Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com
In-Reply-To: <199510260304.VAA00205@wero.byu.edu>
I dont see what this has to do with Linux. The question should
be does the PGP pass phrase ever apper in a swap partition/file.
Well the swap space is an extention of memory, forming part of the
virtual memory system. Obisouly PGP needs to read the passphrase into memory.
And Iam sure is goes out of it way to not keep it there for long. But on
a loaded system PGP might get swaped out the moment it reads the passphrase.
Further more if the system happens to crash at that instant the
passphrase will be keept in the swap space. But this is true for any piece
of memory, PGP passphrase, or not.
Aleph One / aleph1@dfw.net
http://underground.org/
KeyID 1024/948FD6B5
Fingerprint EE C9 E8 AA CB AF 09 61 8C 39 EA 47 A8 6A B8 01
On Wed, 25 Oct 1995 don@cs.byu.edu wrote:
> Has anyone heard of any information on the Linux swap partition,
> for example, if it does me the favor of storing my pgp passphrase?
>
> Anyone who's interested in compiling PGP under ELF, add ASMDEF="-DSYSV"
> to the end of their linux make line.
>
> Don
>
