That's just an example. It could be any other sensitive information,
including kernel state that you don't want to reveal to users.
I think it's a reasonable assumption that one can speak freely in a
printk message. Avoiding to print anything that may possibly contain
sensitive information is likely to make messages less useful, just
think of all the data revealed in an oops.
> The point is user input like telephone numbers or passwords should never
> be fed into the kernel anyhow.
Yes, a bit odd. Maybe because of "intelligent" cards that implement
the signalling in firmware. Anyway, this is an entirely different
issue.
- Werner
-- _________________________________________________________________________ / Werner Almesberger, Buenos Aires, Argentina wa@almesberger.net / /_http://www.almesberger.net/____________________________________________/ - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/