Re: Versioning file system

[Erik Mouw <mouw@nl.linux.org>]

On Thu, Jul 05, 2007 at 09:57:40AM -0400, John Stoffel wrote:
> >>>>> "Erik" == Erik Mouw <mouw@nl.linux.org> writes:
> Erik> The only valid use of Streams in Windows I've seen was a virus
> Erik> checker that stored a hash of the file in a separate
> Erik> stream. Checking a file was a matter of rehashing it and
> Erik> comparing against the hash stored in the special hash data
> Erik> stream for that particular file.
> 
> So what was stopping a virus from infecting a file, re-computing the
> hash and pushing the new hash into the stream?  

Nothing, but the same holds for virus checkers that store the hash in a
separate file. The only advantage of storing the hash in a stream is
that the stream is automatically deleted when you remove the file.

> You need to keep the computed hashes on Read-Only media for true
> security, once you let the system change them, then you're toast....

Agreed.


Erik

-- 
They're all fools. Don't worry. Darwin may be slow, but he'll
eventually get them. -- Matthew Lammers in alt.sysadmin.recovery

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature