Re: propolice

[Peter Fairbrother <zenadsl6186@zen.co.uk>]

Theo de Raadt wrote:

> the new snapshots leaking out contain propolice in the compiler.  this
> means that binaries compiled upon these snapshots will NOT run on
> older systems; there is an upcoming half-flag day for this.  miod will
> be providing more information within a day when this goes into the
> tree, but I just wanted to give an early alert.
> 
> if you want to find out what propolice is, and are too dense to use
> google, please go back in kindergarden.
> 
> 

Propolice relies on a random guard variable that is unknown to an attacker,
and which cannot be determined without local root privileges.

However, an attacker could load a compiled package on a machine on which he
does have root and determine the value.

So any protection would not apply to pre-compiled packages.

I may be wrong here, if so would someone please let me know how.


-- 
Peter Fairbrother

(I guess my antipathy to "bolt-on" security is well known. Didn't we have an
argument about this about a year ago? At the time you rejected putting
buffer-overflow protection into a compiler because "it would break too
much". Fine, but why add an insecure/ineffective feature if you've changed
your mind?)

(dons flameproof suit)