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From: ado@elsie.UUCP (Arthur David Olson)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: brk's zero-fill behavior on VAXen :-)
Message-ID: <7210@elsie.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Nov-86 13:23:04 EST
Article-I.D.: elsie.7210
Posted: Thu Nov  6 13:23:04 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Nov-86 09:38:06 EST
References: <7208@elsie.UUCP> <404@maynard.UUCP>
Organization: NIH-LEC, Bethesda, MD
Lines: 15
Summary: the real solution

> > Can system performance be improved by avoiding zero filling of the new
> > memory?
> 
> Yes, a little bit, but this would be an obvious security hole.

What's clearly called for is a memory mapping feature that instructs the
hardware to randomize the data in a page once it's been abandoned.  A likely
name would be "Destroy on Deallocation," or, for short, "DoD."  Such a
feature would allow paranoid programs to ensure security without penalizing
other programs.
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