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Re: LYNX-DEV Wiping out post data after posting


From: nospam-seesignature
Subject: Re: LYNX-DEV Wiping out post data after posting
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 12:14:20 -0400

On Tue, 29 Jul 1997, Emil Sit wrote:

> Occasionally sensitive information is submitted via forms.
> It doesn't look like post_data is ever zero'ed. A crash could 
> cause a core which would contain this information. I don't
> suppose anyone has a patch to nuke the data? Unfortunately, I don't
> really have time right now to write it myself.

"ulimit -c 0" fixes the problem you mention on most systems.  I can't do
much about kimage sniffers or swapped pages which create the same problem.

It is also not that simple.  The original form where the data is created
retains the data in the entered fields.  You also need to retain the post
content until the server really accepts it (instead of preventing a valid,
but useless "server busy" page that doesn't accept the data so you have to
retype 50 lines...). So what do you nuke and when do you nuke it?

If you have something specific in mind that you need to clear (that is in
the current Lynx) I may have some more ideas, but since forms don't have a
<SENSITIVE> tag, I don't have any way of knowing if the field represents
poetry for publication or a social security number.

The only easy way to protect "sensitive" data in an authentication format
is to use an external hashing program (e.g. do SHA) so you can type your
sensitive data into it, and it would return a hash, and send that hash to
the server, which would also contain hashes of data instead of the raw
information.

--- reply to tzeruch - at - ceddec - dot - com ---

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