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Code Issues Projects Releases Wiki Activity

Don't try to erase secrets from memory.

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1. The things we're really trying to protect - contact identities,
message contents, etc - can't be erased from memory because they're
encapsulated inside objects we don't control.

2. Long-term secrets can't be protected by erasing them from memory
because they're stored in the database and the database key has to be
held in memory whenever the app's running.

3. If the runtime uses a compacting garbage collector then we have no
way to ensure an object is erased from memory.

4. Trying to erase secrets from memory makes the code more complex.

Conclusion: Let's not try to protect secrets from an attacker who can
read arbitrary memory locations.
This commit is contained in:
akwizgran
2014-12-29 21:08:27 +00:00
parent f316d64afa
commit 358166bc12
28 changed files with 211 additions and 557 deletions
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5
briar-android/src/org/briarproject/android/PasswordActivity.java
View File

@@ -133,10 +133,7 @@ public class PasswordActivity extends RoboActivity {
continueButton.setVisibility(GONE);
progress.setVisibility(VISIBLE);
// Decrypt the database key in a background thread
int length = e.length();
final char[] password = new char[length];
e.getChars(0, length, password, 0);
e.delete(0, length);
final String password = e.toString();
cryptoExecutor.execute(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
byte[] key = crypto.decryptWithPassword(encrypted, password);