S-Cache

Security and privacy

secret storage

SHOW HN2020

S-Cache

Secure storage for cryptographic secrets, modeled after sudo

github.com

#secret storage#setuid#cryptographic secrets#sudo#key management

51points
8comments
#1,058of 3,028 in 2020
Top 35%of 2020 by points

How HN took it

CuriousMostly questions and neutral comments

0 positive, 4 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 2 critical, out of 6 comments about the project. Thread score -0.25.

Execution: 0 for, 1 againstDesign: 0 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

Objections

  • Setuid C code has security flaws: HOME env trust, stat/fopen symlink risk, unsanitized popen

    From 1 comment
    • The mention of setuid thing for storing personal secrets seemed a little odd, so I looked at the code. It seems the only thing that has been updated recently is the README and…
      mgerdts on HN
  • Shadow file comparison is questionable since shadow stores hashes, not raw secrets

    From 1 comment
    • Not sure how I feel about the comparison to the shadow passwords file -- the shadow file doesn't contain the raw password, but a hashed version. If someone steals the shadow…
      mothershipper on HN

Requests

  • Use secure C practices and sanitize environment before subprocesses

    From 2 comments
    • The mention of setuid thing for storing personal secrets seemed a little odd, so I looked at the code. It seems the only thing that has been updated recently is the README and…
      mgerdts on HN
    • It’s been a few years since I’ve used GCC, but I believe you’ll want to compile with security flags (e.g. -fPIE -fstack-protector and friends)
      catlifeonmars on HN

Questions

  • Why compare to the shadow passwords file

    From 2 comments
    • Not sure how I feel about the comparison to the shadow passwords file -- the shadow file doesn't contain the raw password, but a hashed version. If someone steals the shadow…
      mothershipper on HN
    • I'm a little confused here. The author compares S-Cache to 'sudo'. 'sudo' is a command that lets an unprivileged user run a privileged command. S-Cache lets a process access a…
      blendergeek on HN

Alternatives named

  • GNOME Keyring

    From 1 comment
    • As you might imagine, there is some prior art in this space. In broadly portable Unix userspace, there is GNOME Keyring. It takes special caution to pin secrets in memory…
      loeg on HN
  • Linux keyctl

    From 1 comment
    • As you might imagine, there is some prior art in this space. In broadly portable Unix userspace, there is GNOME Keyring. It takes special caution to pin secrets in memory…
      loeg on HN
  • macOS Keychain

    From 1 comment
    • As you might imagine, there is some prior art in this space. In broadly portable Unix userspace, there is GNOME Keyring. It takes special caution to pin secrets in memory…
      loeg on HN
  • Windows CryptProtectData

    From 1 comment
    • As you might imagine, there is some prior art in this space. In broadly portable Unix userspace, there is GNOME Keyring. It takes special caution to pin secrets in memory…
      loeg on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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