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Date:      Sat, 14 Sep 2013 10:40:54 +0800
From:      Julian Elischer <julian@freebsd.org>
To:        John Baldwin <jhb@freebsd.org>
Cc:        Gary Palmer <gpalmer@freebsd.org>, freebsd-security@freebsd.org, John-Mark Gurney <jmg@funkthat.com>, Jonathon Wright <jonathon.s.wright@gmail.com>
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD Transient Memory problem?
Message-ID:  <5233CCB6.9010205@freebsd.org>
In-Reply-To: <201309131703.40685.jhb@freebsd.org>
References:  <CAGX1DMbQP=TggYQm-3hra0Od3gjgz5xQ8bEMMrueuhL6kuZMUA@mail.gmail.com> <20130913164718.GC33898@in-addr.com> <CAGX1DMZnk4vBxF-KTO5Zvdu3ZwaA3QVbyB%2BThagWed5i0OWSdg@mail.gmail.com> <201309131703.40685.jhb@freebsd.org>

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On 9/14/13 5:03 AM, John Baldwin wrote:
> On Friday, September 13, 2013 2:23:19 pm Jonathon Wright wrote:
>> Well stated Gary.
>>
>> I need to divulge more information it appears. The reason I'm unable to
>> effectively fight the semantic game, and not pay the auditors, etc. etc. is
>> because the auditors are the DoD. We work for a private company that's
>> contracted out to provide services to the DoD. But we still have to pass
>> their inspections. As you all know, the DoD does not exactly see things in
>> anything but black and white.
>>
>> So yes, my management is freaked out because the DoD auditors (paid for by
>> the DoD btw) are finding issues that we have to resolve to keep the
>> contract going. That's why my hands are tied. I'll give them credit though,
>> they are allowing me to demonstrate FreeBSD's capability in this manner by
>> providing documentation since FreeBSD does not have the cert. Thats the
>> first non-black and white auditor check I've seen in years.
>>
>> We have lots of time and efforts invested in our architecture which is
>> based on FreeBSD and thats why we're fighting to keep it, hence the start
>> of this post.
>>
>> Thanks again for all the insights, I'll keep ya up to date. We have another
>> month or so to work this, so we're still formulating an initial response.
> I think the sensible thing they are looking for is that new pages don't leak
> data between processes, not anything to do with malloc zeroing, etc.  FreeBSD
> definitely does do this.  However, the "right" answer is probably that you
> will have to pay to have the version of FreeBSD you are currently using
> audited.

this will probably be a lot cheaper than changing to Linux at this point.





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