full-disclosure - Xfree86 video buffering?

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Message-ID: <421F5208.9010206@sdf.lonestar.org>
From: bkfsec at sdf.lonestar.org (bkfsec)
Subject: Xfree86 video buffering?

Stan Bubrouski wrote:

> Michael Holstein wrote:
>
>> Seems like an easy fix would be to write a routine into KDM to write 
>> 4-5 seconds worth of something benign (like the KDE logo in different 
>> spots) to the screen before logout/shutdown (note how 2000/XP already 
>> do this with the 'preparing to shutdown' screen? Maybe there's a 
>> reason for that).
>>
>> ~Mike.
>
>
>
> That seems like a pretty unhelpful solution.  Say the system crashes?  
> Or KDE or
> X crash?  The same problem will still exist.
>
> With this solution someone could intentionally crash your machine to 
> avoid those
> routines from running.  I'm not trying to put you down or anything, in 
> fact I probably
> know less about video related stuff than most on the list, this just 
> doesn't seem like
> the best way to do it.  I have no better suggestions, I'll leave this 
> one to
> the experts.
>
You'd think that if someone could force a timed crash on the machine 
intended to save a small amount of data to buffers on the video card, 
that you'd probably have many more problems on your hands than that.

Not to mention that when a machine crashes, most people don't just walk 
away and say "oh well".  They usually restart the machine to either 
continue what they were doing, or to make sure that it starts up 
properly.  We're not really talking about remote information disclosure, 
we're talking about someone being right at the terminal.

My thought on that is that the only way that a crash would work for this 
is if the person were looking over your shoulder.  At that point, why 
would they need to crash the system?

Likewise, not trying to put you down... just pointing out my observations.

             -Barry