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Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5
From: |
Daiki Ueno |
Subject: |
Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5 |
Date: |
Sat, 08 Feb 2014 17:11:41 +0900 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.4 (gnu/linux) |
Ted Zlatanov <address@hidden> writes:
> design, is hard to use securely as an API. As proof, consider the Java
> libraries to implement OpenPGP internally (BouncyCastle). Similar
> situation in Go (http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/go.crypto/openpgp).
>
> Is Emacs so different from those platforms, given applications like Gnus
> and Magit and eww?
Isn't it because those platforms provide more advanced memory management
mechanisms than Emacs?
> DU> - On the other hand, Emacs copies small strings around. If passwords
> DU> (normally not too long) are managed poorly in Emacs, they might appear
> DU> repeatedly in a core file, when it crashes.
>
> Right, regardless of EPA/EPG's behavior, you *still* need passwords in
> the clear to open an IMAP connection, for instance.
I didn't mean one-time use of password like that. I was talking about
the risk of keeping passwords in Emacs memory for a long time, as string
copy also happens in GC.
> I feel that, unless we wish to blame the user for not locking their
> desktop, Emacs should at least try to protect such passwords in its
> own "secure core." It's surely possible and, I honestly believe, a
> worthy goal. I think for that goal to happen *some day* we need the
> crypto primitives GnuTLS/libnettle/libhogweed provide, so we don't
> have to write our own.
Elisp access to crypto primitives doesn't help this either. It must be
entirely written in C then, including IMAP protocol support.
By the way, speaking of IMAP, SASL-based authentication is currently
written in Elisp here and there. Perhaps it could be rewritten with
libgsasl? I think this is a concrete use-case, much convincing than
Elisp access to crypto primitives.
--
Daiki Ueno
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, (continued)
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Stephen J. Turnbull, 2014/02/07
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, David Kastrup, 2014/02/07
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Stephen J. Turnbull, 2014/02/07
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, David Kastrup, 2014/02/07
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Stephen J. Turnbull, 2014/02/07
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Ted Zlatanov, 2014/02/07
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Stephen J. Turnbull, 2014/02/07
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Ted Zlatanov, 2014/02/07
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Daiki Ueno, 2014/02/07
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Ted Zlatanov, 2014/02/07
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5,
Daiki Ueno <=
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Ted Zlatanov, 2014/02/08
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Daiki Ueno, 2014/02/05
Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Ted Zlatanov, 2014/02/04
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Paul Eggert, 2014/02/04
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Ted Zlatanov, 2014/02/04
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Paul Eggert, 2014/02/04
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Ted Zlatanov, 2014/02/04
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Paul Eggert, 2014/02/04
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Ted Zlatanov, 2014/02/04
- Re: Wherein I argue for the inclusion of libnettle in Emacs 24.5, Lars Ingebrigtsen, 2014/02/04