linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH -v2] treewide: Rename "unencrypted" to "decrypted"

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite for Android: free password hash cracker in your pocket

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <878sjw5k9u.fsf@nanos.tec.linutronix.de>
Date:   Thu, 19 Mar 2020 18:25:49 +0100
From:   Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>
To:     Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>, Robin Murphy <robin.murphy@....com>
Cc:     Christoph Hellwig <hch@....de>,
        lkml <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        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>,
        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>,
        Marek Szyprowski <m.szyprowski@...sung.com>,
        linuxppc-dev@...ts.ozlabs.org, linux-s390@...r.kernel.org,
        iommu@...ts.linux-foundation.org,
        Tom Lendacky <thomas.lendacky@....com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH -v2] treewide: Rename "unencrypted" to "decrypted"

Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de> writes:

> On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 11:06:15AM +0000, Robin Murphy wrote:
>> Let me add another vote from a native English speaker that "unencrypted" is
>> the appropriate term to imply the *absence* of encryption, whereas
>> "decrypted" implies the *reversal* of applied encryption.
>> 
>> Naming things is famously hard, for good reason - names are *important* for
>> understanding. Just because a decision was already made one way doesn't mean
>> that that decision was necessarily right. Churning one area to be
>> consistently inaccurate just because it's less work than churning another
>> area to be consistently accurate isn't really the best excuse.
>
> Well, the reason we chose "decrypted" vs something else is so to be as
> different from "encrypted" as possible. If we called it "unencrypted"
> you'd have stuff like:
>
>        if (force_dma_unencrypted(dev))
>                 set_memory_encrypted((unsigned long)cpu_addr, 1 << page_order);

TBH, I don't see how

	if (force_dma_decrypted(dev))
		set_memory_encrypted((unsigned long)cpu_addr, 1 << page_order);
       
makes more sense than the above. It's both non-sensical unless there is
a big fat comment explaining what this is about.

Thanks,

        tglx