Your message dated Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:11:11 +0000 (WET)
with message-id <[email protected]>
and subject line Package quintuple-agent has been removed from Debian
has caused the Debian Bug report #102169,
regarding q-agent stores PGP passphrase insecurely
to be marked as done.
This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.
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--
102169: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=102169
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact [email protected] with problems
--- Begin Message ---
Package: quintuple-agent
Version: 1.0.2
When caching passphrases, q-agent uses memory that's not locked. The
passphrase can be recovered if that part of q-agent's address space is
swapped to disk. In order for the secret key to remain secure in the event
that the machine is lost or stolen, the memory area occupied by the
passphrase must be locked to prevent the swap file from being contaminated
with the passphrase. While q-agent may zero out the passphrase when it times
out, but there's no guarantee that any old blocks on the swap space will be
overwritten before the machine is shut down or stolen. This issue is of
particular importance with laptop computers, since PGP encryption is the
only thing standing between an unauthorized reader and your email should the
machine get stolen.
Since Linux 2.2.x and 2.4.x don't seem to allow ordinary users to lock even
small amounts of memory, one potential solution would be to have q-agent
executed by a wrapper program that passes it a locked shared memory segment
just big enough to hold the passphrase. Swap over an encrypted loopback
filesystem initialized with a throwaway key at each reboot is a workaround.
But using an encrypted loopback filesystem is computationally intensive and
might drain batteries prematurely, especially on smaller laptops. A kernel
level swap cleaner daemon that overwrites recently freed swap blocks would
also work, but with a similar battery life penalty.
--
Brian Ristuccia
[email protected]
[email protected]
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Version: 1.0.4-9+rm
You filed the bug http://bugs.debian.org/102169 in Debian BTS
against the package quintuple-agent. I'm closing it at *unstable*, but it will
remain open for older distributions.
For more information about this package's removal, read
http://bugs.debian.org/390869. That bug might give the reasons why
this package was removed and suggestions of possible replacements.
Don't hesitate to reply to this mail if you have any question.
Thank you for your contribution to Debian.
--
Marco Rodrigues
--- End Message ---
