Re: [PATCH 1/5] WIP: Add syscall unlinkat_s (currently x86* only)

[Alexander Holler <holler@ahsoftware.de>]

Am 03.02.2015 um 18:48 schrieb Theodore Ts'o:
> On Tue, Feb 03, 2015 at 01:48:56PM +0100, Alexander Holler wrote:
>>
>> E.g. my parents are stull successfully using contact lists on paper. These
>> are still more readable, easier to handle and smaller than any available
>> electronic replacement. And they have absolutely no problem to destroy an
>> old one when they replace it with a new one.
>
> Sort of using crypto, which I think is still the best response to this
> particular use case --- the trick is making it easy to use, but that's
> a desktop/distro integration problem --- the most secure way to really
> make sure information on paper and on an SSD is secure is actually the
> same --- you use a shredder.
>
> And this isn't just for "military grade security".  There are some
> commercial cloud providers which do precisely this, because they know
> that their customer's security and their reputation is not easily
> valued, and certainly the cost of some piddling flash chips, after
> they have been depreciated, is defintiely cheaper than a security
> exposure.  Look at the estimates of how much money Target lost with
> their little security oopsie.  Again, this is commercial, not military
> security.

Yeah, as I've already admitted in the bug, I never should have use the 
word secure, because everyone nowadays seems to end up in panic when 
reading that word.

So, if I would be able to use sed on my mails, I would replace 
unlinkat_s() with unlinkat_w() (for wipe) or would say that _s does 
stand for 'shred' in the means of shred(1).

Anyways, as I hopefully still have some years left to live (also I'm 
writing SW since 30a, I'm not that old as some of you guys and still 
have to work at least two decades), I might be able to see where we will 
end up with all that fiasco we've already managed to drive into.

Regards,

Alexander Holler