Secure Passwords in Memory

Eric Gillespie, Jr. epg at progenylinux.com
Sat Sep 30 18:39:05 EDT 2000


On Sat, Sep 30, 2000 at 10:28:17PM +0000,
Ben Caradoc-Davies <bmcd at es.co.nz> wrote:
> If you store the password either in a string, or in a list of characters
> (strings with length 1), or a list of integers, then this isn't going to work,
> because Python strings and numbers are immutable. Even the list contents will
> likely remain in the heap in order once freed.

That's what i was afraid of.

> More deviously, you could store the input as characters in an
> array object (array module), and use fromfile and tofile to
> move them around. You would then be able to erase the memory

Won't i still need to create a string if i actually want to do
anything with the password?

-- 
Eric Gillespie, Jr. <*> epg at progenylinux.com
Software Developer
Progeny Linux Systems - http://progenylinux.com

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