Rafael Garcia-Suarez <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > So, such a "sensitive" modifier could be added, but its > precise meaning would be highly dependent on the underlying > implementation.
Okay, but there needs to be some minimum standard for it, like "the memory in question no longer contains its original contents after garbage collection". The security of the key keeping my information from the Secret Police shouldn't be compromised because the particular Perl backend I'm using doesn't implement "is sensitive" in a meaningful way. I would like "is sensitive" to be defined to mean that any data stored in that variable, at any level of recursion, will be zeroed out as soon as it is garbage collected. Particular implementations can add extra features on top of that--such as stopping the VM from swapping it or even actively encrypting that area of memory--but without a minimum standard there's no point in supporting the feature at all. -- Brent 'Dax' Royal-Gordon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Perl and Parrot hacker
