[olug] Fw: FC: Linus Torvalds on digital rights management inLinux kernel

[Eric Johnson]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2003, Andrew Holm-Hansen wrote:

> Why can't you sign the kernel with a blank key, note the location of the
> signature block in the binary, write a closed source signing tool, and
> run it against the kernel?  This would mean that the key could remain
> closed source and the kernel could be signed by said key.
>
> I don't think the GPL protects against this.
>
> Andrew

I don't think there is a problem with that under the current GPL, but I
believe that security experts (and I am not one) would see issues with the
implementation of this. That said, I bet it would work plenty well for 95%
of all users until the other 5% made the workarounds easy enough to use.


-- Eric Johnson
-- eric_j at oasis.novia.net

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