Re: Column Redaction

* Thom Brown (thom(at)linux(dot)com) wrote:
> On 10 October 2014 12:45, Stephen Frost <sfrost(at)snowman(dot)net> wrote:
> >> There's a difference between intending that there shouldn't be a way
> >> past security and just making access a matter of walking a longer
> >> route.
> >
> > Throwing random 16-digit numbers and associated information at a credit
> > card processor could be viewed as "walking a longer route" too. The
> > same goes for random key searches or password guesses.
>
> But those would need to be exhaustive, and in nearly all cases,
> impractical.

That would be exactly the idea with this- we make it impractical to get
at the unredacted information.

> Data such as plain credit card numbers stored in a
> column, even with all its data masked, would be easy to determine.

I'm not as convinced of that as you are.. Though I'll point out that in
the use-cases which I've been talking to users about, it isn't credit
cards under discussion.

> Salted and hashed passwords, even with complete visibility of the
> value, isn't vulnerable to scrutiny of particular character values.
> If it were, no-one would use it.

I wasn't suggesting otherwise, but I don't see it as particularly
relevant to the discussion regardless.

Thanks,

Stephen