From: Gary Howland <gary@kampai.euronet.nl>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 04:19:21 +0800
To: rickt@psisa.com
Subject: Re: (Fwd) Gov't run anon servers
Message-ID: <199603111015.LAA10327@kampai.euronet.nl>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> Right. Couldn't you insert some kind of var into the kernel, rebuild and
> upon each reboot have the remailer process (which would have to be root
> owned) check for the value of this? I am of course assuming that the owner
> of the remailer has admin control over the box, which is kind of unscalable.
> If someone does gain entry to the machine, he'd need root to skim through
> the kernel memory, and since he wouldn't have access to the remailer src
> (you don't have it online, right?) he'd have a hard time looking for what he
> needed...

I was thinking of something much simpler,
eg.:

	% remailer
	Enter passphrase: xxx
	Remailer started ...
	%

This of course assumes that the remailer runs as a process - if it doesn't
then there is no reason a 'remailer helper' cannot.

The only disadvantage of this is that the remailer cannot be rebooted
without a passphrase being entered, but then there are ways around this
(entering the passphrase remotely over a secure link etc., or more
sophisticated 'remote authorisation' systems).

The advantage of this is that the password is never on the disk,
only in memory (which will take serious (read "expensive") to extract).

I am amazed at all of the talk of smart cards etc., when all that is
really needed is a password entered at boot time.

Gary
--
pub  1024/C001D00D 1996/01/22  Gary Howland <gary@kampai.euronet.nl>
Key fingerprint =  0C FB 60 61 4D 3B 24 7D  1C 89 1D BE 1F EE 09 06