From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Sep 15 21:57:28 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA24126 for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 21:57:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sendero-ppp.i-connect.net (sendero-ppp.i-Connect.Net [206.190.143.100]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id VAA24119 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 21:57:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 12129 invoked by uid 1000); 16 Sep 1997 04:57:46 -0000 Message-ID: X-Mailer: XFMail 1.2-alpha [p0] on FreeBSD X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MIME-Version: 1.0 Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 21:57:46 -0700 (PDT) Organization: Atlas Telecom From: Simon Shapiro To: FreeBSD-Hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Fast Encryption (in kernel) seeked Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hi! It's me again! I have a specific integer (actually a pointer to a structure) which, for performance reasons, I want exported to userspace. What happens with this pointer is that sometimes later it comes back to the kernel. I want a QUICK was to encrypt it so that a melicious user cannot send a bad address into the kernel. The data comes and goes via special /dev entry in the form of READ, WRITE and IOCTL. The pointer in question is to a small structure and the data in the structure is safe from corruption. The reasonm for this mess is that the structure is created/anihilated via malloc/free and the process returning it to the kernel may not be the one that got it from the kernel. Instead of a key to search on, having the address is much faster. The security issue is obvious. If I could have a FAST machanism by which to ``sign'' the address, It would be advantageous way to handle it. If I put just a unique signature that I have to then search for, well, I knwo how to do that, and actually already do that. XORing the pointer can be safe from accidents, but too easy to fake. If this sounds like harebrain idea, it probably is :-) --- Sincerely Yours, (Sent on 15-Sep-97, 21:44:35 by XF-Mail) Simon Shapiro Atlas Telecom Senior Architect 14355 SW Allen Blvd., Suite 130 Beaverton OR 97005 Shimon@i-Connect.Net Voice: 503.643.5559, Emergency: 503.799.2313