Protecting sensitive data [was Re: Cleanup for cryptographic algorithms vs. compiler optimizations]

On 2010-Jun-13 10:07:15 +0200, Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des_at_des.no> wrote:
>You always overwrite passphrases, keys etc. as soon as you're done with
>them so they don't end up in a crash dump or on a swap disk or
>something.

Which brings up an associated issue: By default, mlock(2) can only be
used by root processes.  It would be really handy if non-privileged
processes could lock small amounts of VM so they can securely handle
passwords, passphrases, keys, etc.  MAC offers the option of allowing
non-root processes access to mlock() but doesn't provide any
restrictions on the amount of memory they can lock.

-- 
Peter Jeremy