07-06-2009
I agree with Neo. I'd like to split the matter into two distinct parts, a theoretical and a practical one.
Even theoretically-only spoken the matter of closed-source versus open-source remains complicated. A possible advantage of open-source is the peer-review process which can take place. But to capitalize on this advantage this process has to take place at all, which is in no way guaranteed by something being open-source at all.
A possible advantage of closed-source software would be the "security by obscurity" approach. Experience suggests that this is not a (lasting) security measure at all and in the case of compromised security there is a single possible source able to provide corrective services, whereas open-source software could be changed by everybody in theory, which still leaves a lot of possible authors of corrections in practice.
Approaching the problem on a practical level it has to be stated that "security" is - like "performance" for that matter - a relative term and cannot be used absolutely. There is some value of x you want to protect and there is some estimated effort of y needed to overcome your security measures. If x is (much) bigger than y you have a security problem, otherwise you haven't.
To appraise your security status simply put yourself into the place of the intruder: will it possibly pay off to overcome your defenses? Act, if the answer is "yes" or near there, otherwise don't bother.
It is similar to what i have countlessly told executives in meetings regarding "performance": you have some demand, which can be measured (in seconds, transactions completed, kilobytes, whatever) and there is a system having to meet the demand. It comes down to "does the system meet the specified demand - yes/no?" Performance is not being "fast" but "fast enough".
The same is true for security: what you protect and the efforts for protecting it have to be in proportion and the question is not "safe" but "safe enough".
bakunin
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LEARN ABOUT HPUX
gss_export_sec_context
gss_export_sec_context(3) Library Functions Manual gss_export_sec_context(3)
NAME
gss_export_sec_context() - transfer a security context to another process on a single machine
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
The deactivates the security context for the calling process and creates an interprocess token which, when passed to in another
process, will re-activate the context in the second process.
Only a single instantiation of a given context may be active at any one time; a subsequent attempt by a context exporter to access the
exported security context will fail. is created such that it is functionally identical to the original context.
If creation of the interprocess token is successful, the implementation shall deallocate all process-wide resources associated with the
security context, and set the context_handle to The ability to transfer a security context is indicated when the context is created, by or
setting the bit in their ret_flags parameter.
Input Parameters
context_handle Specifies the context handle identifying the context to transfer.
interprocess_token Specifies the token to be transferred to target process.
Output Parameters
minor_status Returns a status code from the security mechanism.
STATUS CODES
The following status codes can be returned:
The routine was completed successfully.
The context has expired
The supplied context handle did not refer to a valid context.
The operation is not supported.
AUTHOR
was developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
SEE ALSO
gss_import_sec_context(3).
The manpages for DCE-GSSAPI are included with the DCE-CoreTools product. To see those manpages add to
gss_export_sec_context(3)