Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 23 Apr 2003 21:43:28 -0700 | From | Greg KH <> | Subject | Re: Flame Linus to a crisp! |
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On Wed, Apr 23, 2003 at 08:59:45PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > Btw, one thing that is clearly _not_ allowed by the GPL is hiding private > keys in the binary. You can sign the binary that is a result of the build > process, but you can _not_ make a binary that is aware of certain keys > without making those keys public - because those keys will obviously have > been part of the kernel build itself.
The GPL does allow you to embed a public key in the kernel, which could enforce only executables signed with a private key from being run, or only signed modules from being loaded. Both of which are things that I know a lot of people want to do (and I've done in the past, see http://linuxusb.bkbits.net:8080/cryptomark-2.4 for the 2.4 version of a signed binaries are only allowed to run patch.)
I know a lot of people can (and do) object to such a potential use of Linux, and I'm glad to see you explicitly state that this is an acceptable use, it helps to clear up the issue.
thanks,
greg k-h - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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