[10352] in bugtraq
Re: stored credentials was: Netscape 4.5 vulnerability
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jay R. Ashworth)
Sun Apr 25 14:18:01 1999
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Message-Id: <19990424151228.24268@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us>
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 15:12:28 -0400
Reply-To: "Jay R. Ashworth" <jra@SCFN.THPL.LIB.FL.US>
From: "Jay R. Ashworth" <jra@SCFN.THPL.LIB.FL.US>
To: BUGTRAQ@NETSPACE.ORG
In-Reply-To: <3720E0D9.DA3A5AB3@nodc.noaa.gov>; from Jefferson Ogata
<jogata@NODC.NOAA.GOV> on Fri, Apr 23, 1999 at 05:06:33PM -0400
On Fri, Apr 23, 1999 at 05:06:33PM -0400, Jefferson Ogata wrote:
> The encryption key then can only be retrieved by a user that can arrange
> that its own program have the filesystem.inode under which a key was stored,
> i.e. the owner of the directory where the binary is located, or root. Root
> could also just pull the key directly out of the database.
>
> I guess the original topic of discussion was the feasibility of a system
> that not even root could subvert. This doesn't qualify, but it does allow
> programs to save encrypted passwords that can be decrypted only by the
> program that stored them (or root) in a publically readable file. And I'm
> sure there's something fundamentally flawed about it, because I'm not a
> cryptography expert.
Alas, what is fundamentally flawed about it is that when I re-install
my backup software on a Friday afternoon, it will no longer be able to
access the capability key it needs to back up my servers, something I
will not find out until Monday morning, when I discover that my hard
drive crashed Sunday afternoon...
Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com
Member of the Technical Staff Buy copies of The New Hackers Dictionary.
The Suncoast Freenet Give them to all your friends.
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