Re: Why I have a 512 bit PGP key

[Adam Shostack <adam@bwh.harvard.edu>]

Eric wrote:

|    From: "Ian Farquhar" <ianf@sydney.sgi.com>
| 
| re: personal account tripwire
| 
|    The problem is that although you can protect the data file of
|    hashes (by using a pass phrase to encrypt it), protecting the
|    binary which does the checking is rather more difficult.
| 
| Why not recompile the binary?  All it needs to be is something like
| md5.c.

	Or leave the binary on a floppy (assuming you can access
floppies, or some other removable media.)  The problem reduces pretty
quickly to a variant of trusting trust.  root can hack the kernel, the
math libraries, your shell, or several other points to make life
difficult.  Can you go through a set of steps so convoluted as to
catch this?  Probably.  But in all likelyhood, its easier to get a
personal machine on which to store private files.

Adam

-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
						       -Hume