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danwent / Perspectives-Server

network notary implementation for the Perspectives project
http://perspectives-project.org
GNU General Public License v3.0
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Overwrite sensitive memory #41

Open daveschaefer opened 10 years ago

daveschaefer commented 10 years ago

While sensitive data stored in memory can never be truly safe on an untrusted system, especially in python with immutable strings, garbage collection algorithms, et cetera, we could take steps to enhance our current treatment of sensitive information.

Notary server code could track any strings that contain sensitive information, and overwrite them with e.g. zeros once they are no longer needed or if the notary shuts down. This would be better than doing nothing.

daveschaefer commented 10 years ago

I have some draft code that would work for this in cpython implementations. It may not work in other implementations.

netsafe commented 9 years ago

It seems to be useless, and let me explain why. There are some sensitive dada - indeed, there are some other processes on servers - true, but if your potential opponent can take over even the garbage collection of the language or os - it means that he has root privileges. And it means there's no way to stop him from obtaining an information he needs.