Re: Random Register Contents
Andrej Presern (andrejp@luz.fe.uni-lj.si)
Mon, 2 Nov 1998 15:38:39 +0100
On Mon, 02 Nov 1998, Chip Salzenberg wrote:
>According to Andi Kleen:
>> In article <19981031181957.I11587@perlsupport.com>,
>> Chip Salzenberg <chip@perlsupport.com> writes:
>> > According to John Reiser:
>> >> I'm working on a product where it is desirable for a process to have as
>> >> much run-to-run repeatability as possible. I've run into problems with
>> >> exec() introducing needless randomness via the registers.
>>
>> > And random register contents are a problem because ... ??
>>
>> ... because conservative garbage collectors use the registers as root set.
>
>Hm, I suppose this could happen.
>
>> Also in theory it is a covert channel.
>
>Now _this_ I buy. Bug status confirmed, IMO.
If you're worried about covert channels on UNIX, you should kill the
filesystem asap, together with 90% of the rest of the system (yes, UNIX
"security" is really that broken, by design).
Andrej
--
Andrej Presern, andrejp@luz.fe.uni-lj.si
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