linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] treewide: Rename "unencrypted" to "decrypted"

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Date:   Tue, 17 Mar 2020 14:34:30 -0700
From:   Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>
To:     Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...el.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>
Cc:     Borislav Petkov <bp@...e.de>, lkml <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        "Schofield, Alison" <alison.schofield@...el.com>,
        Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@...nel.crashing.org>,
        Paul Mackerras <paulus@...ba.org>,
        Michael Ellerman <mpe@...erman.id.au>,
        Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@...ibm.com>,
        Vasily Gorbik <gor@...ux.ibm.com>,
        Christian Borntraeger <borntraeger@...ibm.com>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, x86@...nel.org,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Christoph Hellwig <hch@....de>,
        Marek Szyprowski <m.szyprowski@...sung.com>,
        Robin Murphy <robin.murphy@....com>,
        linuxppc-dev@...ts.ozlabs.org, linux-s390@...r.kernel.org,
        iommu@...ts.linux-foundation.org,
        Tom Lendacky <thomas.lendacky@....com>,
        "Shutemov, Kirill" <kirill.shutemov@...el.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] treewide: Rename "unencrypted" to "decrypted"

On Tue, 2020-03-17 at 14:24 -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> On 3/17/20 2:06 PM, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 01:35:12PM -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> > > On 3/17/20 4:18 AM, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> > > > Back then when the whole SME machinery started getting mainlined, it
> > > > was agreed that for simplicity, clarity and sanity's sake, the terms
> > > > denoting encrypted and not-encrypted memory should be "encrypted" and
> > > > "decrypted". And the majority of the code sticks to that convention
> > > > except those two. So rename them.
> > > Don't "unencrypted" and "decrypted" mean different things?
> > > 
> > > Unencrypted to me means "encryption was never used for this data".
> > > 
> > > Decrypted means "this was/is encrypted but here is a plaintext copy".
> > Maybe but linguistical semantics is not the point here.
> > 
> > The idea is to represent a "binary" concept of memory being encrypted
> > or memory being not encrypted. And at the time we decided to use
> > "encrypted" and "decrypted" for those two things.
> 
> Yeah, agreed.  We're basically trying to name "!encrypted".
> 
> > Do you see the need to differentiate a third "state", so to speak, of
> > memory which was never encrypted?
> 
> No, there are just two states.  I just think the "!encrypted" case
> should not be called "decrypted".

Nor do I, it's completely misleading.