From: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
To: Pekka Enberg <penberg@cs.helsinki.fi>
Cc: Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org>,
linux-mm@kvack.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [patch 0/8] kzfree()
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:19:25 -0800 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20090216121925.a34cca6e.akpm@linux-foundation.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <4999C556.7010605@cs.helsinki.fi>
On Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:58:14 +0200 Pekka Enberg <penberg@cs.helsinki.fi> wrote:
> Hi Andrew,
>
> Andrew Morton wrote:
> > On Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:29:26 +0100 Johannes Weiner <hannes@cmpxchg.org> wrote:
> >
> >> This series introduces kzfree() and converts callsites which do
> >> memset() + kfree() explicitely.
> >
> > I dunno, this looks like putting lipstick on a pig.
> >
> > What is the point in zeroing memory just before freeing it? afacit
> > this is always done as a poor-man's poisoning operation.
>
> I think they do it as security paranoia to make sure other callers don't
> accidentally see parts of crypto keys, passwords, and such. So I don't
> think we can just get rid of the memsets.
Ok, you're right - I thought only a couple were doing that but it looks like
all of them except for perhaps ATM are being non-stupid.
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prev parent reply other threads:[~2009-02-16 20:20 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 24+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2009-02-16 14:29 [patch 0/8] kzfree() Johannes Weiner
2009-02-16 14:29 ` [patch 1/8] slab: introduce kzfree() Johannes Weiner
2009-02-16 15:27 ` Johannes Weiner
2009-02-17 15:08 ` Christoph Lameter
2009-02-17 15:51 ` Pekka Enberg
2009-02-17 16:01 ` Christoph Lameter
2009-02-16 14:29 ` [patch 2/8] crypto: use kzfree() Johannes Weiner
2009-02-16 14:29 ` [patch 3/8] s390: " Johannes Weiner
2009-02-16 14:29 ` [patch 4/8] md: " Johannes Weiner
2009-02-16 14:29 ` [patch 5/8] usb: " Johannes Weiner
2009-02-16 14:29 ` [patch 6/8] cifs: " Johannes Weiner
2009-02-16 15:13 ` Pekka Enberg
2009-02-16 15:33 ` Johannes Weiner
2009-02-16 18:17 ` Pekka Enberg
2009-02-16 19:01 ` Steve French
2009-02-16 19:02 ` Steve French
2009-02-16 14:29 ` [patch 7/8] ecryptfs: " Johannes Weiner
2009-02-16 20:02 ` Andrew Morton
2009-02-16 20:28 ` Johannes Weiner
2009-02-17 7:51 ` Tyler Hicks
2009-02-16 14:29 ` [patch 8/8] atm: " Johannes Weiner
2009-02-16 19:59 ` [patch 0/8] kzfree() Andrew Morton
2009-02-16 19:58 ` Pekka Enberg
2009-02-16 20:19 ` Andrew Morton [this message]
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