using insecure memory

John C. Place John C. Place" <jcplace@attglobal.net
Fri, 25 Aug 2000 22:20:19 -0400


On Sat, Aug 26, 2000 at 10:10:16AM +1000, Michael Still wrote:

> I presume this would make it suid root, because when I run gpg as root I never see this insecure
> memory message. Is the message just because root can look at other user's memory spaces? Or is there
> another reason as well?
>
GnuPG locks memory so it is not swapped to disk. In theory a person could use swapped info to compromise a key. Some platforms (FreeBSD for one) require root access to lock pages. At least that is my understanding. John John C. Place jcplace@attglobal.net http://profile.guru.com/placej http://placej.interactivecore.com/public_key.txt Reboot America. -- Archive is at http://lists.gnupg.org - Unsubscribe by sending mail with a subject of "unsubscribe" to gnupg-users-request@gnupg.org