Re: open source PostgreSQL not supportable? (Was: Challenging SQL Query Problem. Can you solve it?)

From: DA Morgan <damorgan_at_psoug.org>
Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 11:18:37 -0800
Message-ID: <1136575114.278502@jetspin.drizzle.com>

Justin L. Kennedy wrote:
> In comp.databases.postgresql DA Morgan <damorgan_at_psoug.org> wrote:
>

>>The laws are intended to make sure that the audit trail prevents system
>>administrators and DBAs from making unaudited changes. So root and all
>>system/DBA passwords plus physical access to the server.

>
>
> Once you have root, you pretty much have everything needed to make any
> unaudited changes you want. How does Oracle solve this problem? For
> example, given root, what is to stop someone from opening up the tables in
> a hex editor as they appear on the hard disk?

Hans gave you part of the picture. Another is built-in capabilities such as the DBMS_CRYPTO, DBMS_OBFUSCATION_TOOLKITS, and TRANSPARENT DATA ENCRYPTION that can make it impossible to use a hex editor on anything.

Also, to make any changes undetectably would require bringing down the instance and database ... something impossible to do without leaving a record of the intrusion.

There are many other ways as well. But these are enough to make the point.

-- 
Daniel A. Morgan
http://www.psoug.org
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)

Received on Fri Jan 06 2006 - 13:18:37 CST