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SubjectPID bit-width
Has everyone forgotten the old coda_fs-security discussion and
the question of how to be sure that you are still talking to
the original process on a system fast enough to wrap the
pid counter in < 1 sec?

(That question doesn't have to be solved with the pid, you can
use a wide cookie, but if coda can potentially have this problem,
so can the kernel and network in other contexts.)

Sheesh, these things may need to become 64-bit as well as "random
select next pid", just for security reasons, not because anyone
is really running that many concurrent processes/kernel_threads.

More convenient user display formatting is far down the priority list here
compared to security and uniquely identifying processes even in
the context of an intelligent attack on fast hardware that may
not even have been invented yet.

Convenience is good. Security is mission-critical.

Regards,

Clayton Weaver
<mailto:cgweav@eskimo.com>
(Seattle)

"Everybody's ignorant, just in different subjects." Will Rogers



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