Re: Deprecating .gz format on kernel.org

[Hank Leininger <hlein@progressive-comp.com>]

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On Fri, 21 Mar 2003, Ville Herva wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 20, 2003 at 06:14:53PM -0500, you [Hank Leininger] wrote:
> >
> > Right, but if the uncompressed file is what's signed, then you must
> > waste either CPU uncompressing twice (once to verify, once to untar) or
> > waste disk (to store the uncompressed file, then verify, then untar).
>
> bzip2 -d < foo.tar.bz2 | tee >(md5sum) | tar xf
> or
> bzip2 -d < foo.tar.bz2 | tee >(gpg --verify foo.tar.bz2.sig) | tar xf

Yup, but (besides the tar tpyo you corrected later) this still isn't
safe.

1) gpg --verify won't be able to complete until it's seen all the unpacked
   tar file.

2) During that time tar -xf - will be unpacking and writing.

3) If the signature is bad, too late you've already unpacked it:
   -At best you need to blow away what you just unpacked.
   -Worse, it may have just (over)written real files in pwd other than
     the ones you think it should have.
   -Worst, if the tarfile is maliciously crafted to exploit tar (..'ing
     archive, symlink-following archive, or bad data which overflows
     tar), who-knows-what damage is already done.  This might sound
     far-fetched, except that it already happens.

...But it sounds like the whole discussion is dead anyway.  It would be
at least slightly less off-topic on security-audit, perhaps we should
move it there (http://lsap.org/mail.html).  Or to alt.tinfoil.hat.

Hank Leininger <hlein@progressive-comp.com>
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