Comment by josephcsible | Hacker News Reader

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Comment by josephcsible | Hacker News Reader

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This is not an attack vector and not something programs should try to protect against. If attackers have control to the point that they can run a program with LD_PRELOAD, they've already won.

There are cases where developers need to protect software from a local user with root access, like DRM related software, games that want to defend against pirates, etc.

That's more of a want than a need.

Those use cases are inherently evil, and the rest of us should go out of our way to make them impossible, or at least as difficult as possible. A local user with root access should always have full control over everything, regardless of the wishes of any hardware manufacturers or software developers.

This would not help with that goal.

Won on that node, agreed. I suppose I meant the 'investigate programs' part of the title and if that aids in garnering info for attacking something it interacts with.

But of course it's all splitting hairs. A sufficiently dedicated / motivated / funded person can investigate even the most hardened static position independent binary. Dynamic linking with LD_PRELOAD is like propping the front door open in comparison.

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