Tim,

Are memory databases cached?
Can they be encrypted in the memory?
If yes, do you think it would make it any difficult for a somewhat experienced hacker to
dump the data to disk?

Regards.
Leslie

I whish  there was a "modify" link ...

Leslie <progman97@mi-net.hu> wrote:

I whish  there was a "modify" link ...  So I could have corrected  disk --> disc

Leslie

>Are memory databases cached?

They live in memory. If you're using c/s that's the server's memory. So the tables will be in ram unless Windows needs to swap out to the pageing system.

>Can they be encrypted in the memory?

Should be able to, in-memory tables are the same as disk tables - but I've never tried it

>If yes, do you think it would make it any difficult for a somewhat experienced hacker to
>dump the data to disk?

Encrypting a table will make no difference in dumping the data to disk, but it will make it a lot more difficult for a hacker to understand what the data is

Roy Lambert [Team Elevate]

Roy,

>They live in memory. If you're using c/s that's the server's memory. So the tables will
be in ram unless Windows needs to swap out to the pageing system.

This part I uderstand. The question was if the datasets caching takes place with memory
databases the same way as with disk based databases, even though the data is already in
memory. As far as I undertand that is the only caching in ElevateDB, but I may be wrong.


>Encrypting a table will make no difference in dumping the data to disk, but it will make
it a lot more difficult for a hacker to understand what the data is

Yep,  exactely the same encryption is used, does not matter where the database is located.
I probably should have asked how difficult it is to reverse engineer the crypting
algorithm. I have never cracked anything, my only interest is in making it as hard as
possible, but I do know that there are unpackers out there for probably all the security
systems made for delphi. Probably recoding bits of the code for a virtual machine is the
protection which requires the most time and skill to break, but it also slows done
execution.. As EDB encryption is costumized by Tim (or by his team) so it may provide
better security simply because it is not used widely.  And this is the exact reason I
should have asked this privately, not here.  



Roy Lambert [Team Elevate]

Uuups, forgot to delete the last line from the quote.

Leslie,

<< This part I uderstand. The question was if the datasets caching takes
place with memory databases the same way as with disk based databases, even
though the data is already in memory. As far as I undertand that is the only
caching in ElevateDB, but I may be wrong. >>

Yes, that is the way it works.  EDB does not distinguish between in-memory
databases and on-disk databases, except at the lowest levels of the engine.

<< Yep,  exactely the same encryption is used, does not matter where the
database is located. I probably should have asked how difficult it is to
reverse engineer the crypting algorithm. >>

It's strong crypto, but that still doesn't solve the problem that the data
is unencrypted at various points in memory.  Put it this way, if a hacker
has access to the process in which the data is being manipulated in any
fashion, then the game is over.  The encryption is only useful for
preventing the viewing/decrypting of data on disk.

<< As EDB encryption is costumized by Tim (or by his team) so it may provide
better security simply because it is not used widely.  And this is the exact
reason I should have asked this privately, not here.  >>

It's Blowfish encryption, so it is widely used:

http://www.elevatesoft.com/manual?action=mantopic&id=edb2sql&category=0&topic=19

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

I'm confused.  Are EDB memory datasets held entirely in memory or not? For example in
kbmemtable the data is held entirely in memory. Or are they really a special type of
temporary table that is actually held on disk and cached as a normal table?  I hope the
former otherwise why bother with them at all?  We can easily make our own temp tables.

Rob


"Tim Young [Elevate Software]" <timyoung@elevatesoft.com> wrote:

Leslie,

<< This part I uderstand. The question was if the datasets caching takes
place with memory databases the same way as with disk based databases, even
though the data is already in memory. As far as I undertand that is the only
caching in ElevateDB, but I may be wrong. >>

Yes, that is the way it works.  EDB does not distinguish between in-memory
databases and on-disk databases, except at the lowest levels of the engine.

<< Yep,  exactely the same encryption is used, does not matter where the
database is located. I probably should have asked how difficult it is to
reverse engineer the crypting algorithm. >>

It's strong crypto, but that still doesn't solve the problem that the data
is unencrypted at various points in memory.  Put it this way, if a hacker
has access to the process in which the data is being manipulated in any
fashion, then the game is over.  The encryption is only useful for
preventing the viewing/decrypting of data on disk.

<< As EDB encryption is costumized by Tim (or by his team) so it may provide
better security simply because it is not used widely.  And this is the exact
reason I should have asked this privately, not here.  >>

It's Blowfish encryption, so it is widely used:

http://www.elevatesoft.com/manual?action=mantopic&id=edb2sql&category=0&topic=19

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Rob,

<< I'm confused.  Are EDB memory datasets held entirely in memory or not? >>

Yes, they're held exclusively in memory.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Tim,

Thank you for your answer.

Does it make sence to set all caches for the datasets of a memory database to zero?
What settings would you recommend?

Regards,
Leslie