On Wed, Jan 08, 2003 at 01:29:08AM +0200, Keith Smith wrote: > I think that client is probably worried about regular users that will > have access to the file system, rather than a determined external > hacker. The kind of people who could easily create a script to grab > any plaintext temp files, but who wouldn't have access to the source > code, the passphrase, or root. You know: regular employees. How does the encrypting improve the security of storing the files in a directory, which is only readable by selected users, then? They can only manage to read them, if they obtain that particular user's UID. But if they do it, they can probably also read /proc/N/mem, effectively bypassing the encryption. You could always try to disable such things as /proc/*/mem, ptrace(), etc... but UNIX isn't really designed to keep a user from accessing stuff that runs under or is owned by his own UID, so you can never be sure if you plugged all the "holes". So I guess that "chmod go-rwx ." is the ultimate security you can get, eventually :-) regards, Marcin -- Marcin Owsiany <marcinat_private> http://marcin.owsiany.pl/ GnuPG: 1024D/60F41216 FE67 DA2D 0ACA FC5E 3F75 D6F6 3A0D 8AA0 60F4 1216 "Every program in development at MIT expands until it can read mail." -- Unknown
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