I thought a little bit about security, and IMHO it would be nice if those
script kiddies, when they can root my system (which I will probably never
be able to prevent), would not be able to read my secret keys.
I thought of creating executables that contain the necessary routines and
the secret key that are protected by a special file flag which does the
following:
- The flag can be set by any user
- The owner may not change
- The file can not be read
- The file can be executed by the owner
- The file can not be written to.
- The file can be renamed by the owner, if the owner is not root.
- The file can be deleted by the owner, if the owner is not root
- If the flag is set while the file is open for writing, do not allow
further opening or reading, and let the write()s proceed.
The last rule is meant for upgrading the software: You ask (with your
passphrase) that the module appends the secret key to file X. It then
opens that file in append/exclusive mode, sets the flag, then writes the
key.
What do you think? Is this possible?
Simon
PGP public key available from ftp://phobos.fs.tum.de/pub/pgp/geier.asc
Fingerprint: 10 62 F6 F5 C0 5D 9E D8 47 05 1B 8A 22 E5 4E C1
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