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From: Chuck Ebbert <76306.1226@compuserve.com>
To: Scott McDermott <vaxerdec@frontiernet.net>
Cc: linux-kernel <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: kernel zeroing memory (was Re: Why DRM exists)
Date: Fri, 2 May 2003 04:50:49 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <200305020452_MC3-1-3708-DBF0@compuserve.com> (raw)

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

                 reply	other threads:[~2003-05-02  8:40 UTC|newest]

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