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 jraat_private Member of the Technical Staff Buy copies of The New Hackers Dictionary. The Suncoast Freenet Give them to all your friends. Tampa Bay, Florida http://www.ccil.org/jargon/ +1 813 790 7592
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