Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261957AbTEBIk0 (ORCPT ); Fri, 2 May 2003 04:40:26 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261959AbTEBIk0 (ORCPT ); Fri, 2 May 2003 04:40:26 -0400 Received: from siaag1ab.compuserve.com ([149.174.40.4]:57473 "EHLO siaag1ab.compuserve.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261957AbTEBIkY (ORCPT ); Fri, 2 May 2003 04:40:24 -0400 Date: Fri, 2 May 2003 04:50:49 -0400 From: Chuck Ebbert <76306.1226@compuserve.com> Subject: Re: kernel zeroing memory (was Re: Why DRM exists) To: Scott McDermott Cc: linux-kernel Message-ID: <200305020452_MC3-1-3708-DBF0@compuserve.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 973 Lines: 27 Scott McDermott wrote: > I would have thought that the kernel would itself zero > memory in the case of sensitive memory contents, before > allowing it to be used as user memory. There is no way to tell whether anything is sensitive or not, so it all gets cleared. > That's interesting...why doesn't it do that? In many cases > the information is not sensitive. Why incur this speed > penalty of having to zero any memory given to user? That's what the 'designers' of The Beast's mainstream OS of that era thought, and look what happened... And rather than admit that their bread-and-butter OS at that time had fatal security flaws, they had the nerve to patch their apps and release a bulletin about it! ------ Chuck - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/