Re: forbid to strace a program

[Andreas Hartmann <andihartmann@01019freenet.de>]

Chase Venters wrote:
>> Is there another way to do this? If the password is crypted, I need a
>> passphrase or something other to decrypt it again. Not really a solution
>> of the problem.
>>
>> Therefore, it would be best, to hide it by preventing stracing of the
>> application to all users and root.
>>
>> Ok, root could search for the password directly in the memory, but this
>> would be not as easy as a strace.
> 
> Obfuscation isn't really valid security. Making something 'harder' to break 
> isn't a solution unless you're making it hard enough that current technology 
> can't break it (eg... you always have the brute force option, but good crypto 
> intends to make such an option impossible without expending zillions of clock 
> cycles). 

You're right. If I would have a solution, which could do this, I would
prefer it.

> 
> Can I ask why you want to hide the database password from root?

It's easy: for security reasons. There could always be some bugs in some
software, which makes it possible for some other user, to gain root
privileges. Now, they could easily strace for information, they shouldn't
could do it. The password they could see, isn't just used for the DB, but
for some other applications, too. That's the disadvantage of general
(single sign on) passwords.


Kind regards,
Andreas Hartmann