On Tue, Jun 19, 2001 at 12:28:46AM -0800, Ethan Benson wrote: > On Tue, Jun 19, 2001 at 12:17:07PM +0800, Ben Harvey wrote: > > > cracker==root sysadmin==root+LIDS_password > > if someone can sniff me typing in my lids password (encrypted in the kernel) > > then I am stuffed. > > they can always read the password hash out of the kernel and run a > brute force attack on it too.
More likely is that they might read the plain text password from a buffer somewhere, or capture it while you type it. If they can make arbitrary changes to the running kernel code, you lose. (That's another reason why the module signing + user-space memory access stuff would be good.) Of course, unless the password is very long and strong, the brute for attack will be much cheaper than breaking MD5 usually is. -- #define X(x,y) x##y Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X([EMAIL PROTECTED] , ns.ca) "The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish the hours! Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack my day so wretchedly into small pieces!" -- Plautus, 200 BCE