On 28 Feb 2008 05:17:17 GMT
phil-news-nospam@ipal.net wrote:

> |> I'd also recommend wiping the data with random bits instead of zeros.
> |
> | Why? To protect against possible even more bizarre, even more
> | hypothetical attacks? This attack is so bizarre, it's barely worth
> | doing much of anything about.
>
> It's to confuse analysis after the fact. If the wipe is incomplete,
> it is easy to see where the wipe ends and the data begins. With
> random bits it is harder.

I wouldn't count on that. That would require that the data itself is
just as random-looking as the PRNG's output, which is almost never the
case, and if it is, then wiping isn't necessary anyway.

The whole concept is flawed. It's not the operating system's
responsibility to decide, which parts of the memory contain sensitive
data. On the other hand, a background daemon, which runs very (!)
nicely, could wipe unused memory. The usefulness of this is
questionable, though, since attacks against the live RAM will be attacks
against running applications anyway.


Regards,
Ertugrul.


--
http://ertes.de/