using the uname() function

[Mike A. Harris]

On Tue, 9 Sep 2003, Ulrich Drepper wrote:

>This is the job of the gethostid() function which is even in POSIX so
>you really shouldn't have looked far.
>
>But the implementation of this function isn't something you will like.
>It does not provide a secure mechanism.  The sysadmin is able to change
>the information at will.  Well, using the uname() function would have
>the same problem.  One would just have to preload a DSO with the
>appropriate gethostid/uname/... implementation which returns the right
>number.
>
>If you need something which cannot be tempered with you need to install
>extra hardware like a dongle.

Dongles can be tampered with using a logic probe and 
oscilloscope.  ;o)

-- 
Mike A. Harris     ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer - XFree86 maintainer - Red Hat