On 06.04.2012 09:51, Daniel Shahaf wrote: > Branko Čibej wrote on Fri, Apr 06, 2012 at 08:06:32 +0200: >> This makes me wonder if we couldn't perhaps keep the whole thing as an >> in-memory-not-disk-backed SQLite database, then encrypt and dump the >> whole SQLite memory snapshot to disk. The real trouble with that >> approach is that debugging the database using the SQLite command-line >> tools would be impossible, everything would have to happen through the >> SVN API. > Presumably we'd write a tools/dev/ helper that decrypts the memory > snapshot and dumps it to an on-disk SQLite db?
This really has other problems, too. Actually, /any/ passphrase-based system we use has it: "in-memory" does not, by itself, imply that the unencrypted data never end up on disk. At the very least, the unencrypted bits need to be stored in locked, access-protected memory, so that they don't get swapped out and can't be accessed by (non-root) users. OS-provided password storage systems typically already account for this. And, whilst Subversion doesn't take these precautions with individual passwords, a passphrase that protects a number of different credentials needs more attention to preventing plaintext leaks. -- Brane