Posted by Gordon Burditt on 01/08/07 23:37

>I am writing an application that will access a third party (S3 from
>Amazon).

An application accessing a person sounds kinda kinky.

>I am working with some class files and I need to access my
>secret userid/password.

Password *TO WHAT*? A database on another machine that the same
sysadmin doesn't control?

>If I put those in a source code file, the average browser can't view
>the data (as far as I know)

It's a good idea to put this in an include file *OUTSIDE THE DOCUMENT ROOT*
just in case PHP gets broken (may happen briefly while upgrading it
if you don't bother shutting down Apache).

>but what would stop some system admin from
>viewing my files?

Nothing. Although encryption may help keep honest sysadmins from
peeking.

>In other words, I have a file called info.php and within it I have:
>
>$userid = 'myuser';
>$pass = 'mypass';
>
>That would easily be visible to a system admin.
>
>Even if I encrypt the data don't I have to store the decryption key
>somewhere?

How do I store the decryption key for pay-per-view or pay channel
video, so the cable box can decrypt it if and only if I'm authorized
to view it? (Actually, in this instance, they may be storing the
key to decrypt the key to decrypt the key). Note it's not practical
to send different content down the cable to each house.

Cable industry answer: "tamper-proof" hardware. And guess what? It
gets hacked regularly.

>How do you guys and gals handle it?

Hire people / services you can trust. That possibly means hosting it
yourself.

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