Re: Article on DB encryption

Alle 19:19, lunedì 8 marzo 2004, Bruce Momjian ha scritto:
> The user could decrypt it and store it in a temporary table, and join to
> that table in queries, and pass that decrypted password column to
> pg_crypto functions, but do we guarantee that that temp table would not
> be on the disk if the server crashes and is then stolen?  Seems
> server-side variables would be a natural, secure use for this that temp
> tables don't supply.

I agree. This "Global Server Password" should not be stored into a database,
not even into a temporary table (because of virtual memory). It should be
stored in memory as a server-wide variable. We just need a way to pass it to
the server at start-up, using a command line parameter, or even to the
running server, using a TCP/IP socket or something like that. Most likely,
this second form would better fit the needs of a server.

See you

PS: Bruce, it's a real pleasure to meet you on the web. Your book on
PostgreSQL is one of the most "chewed" of my collection.

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Alessandro Bottoni and Silvana Di Martino
alessandrobottoni@interfree.it
silvanadimartino@tin.it