Re: Column Redaction

From: Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnakangas(at)vmware(dot)com>
To: Stephen Frost <sfrost(at)snowman(dot)net>, Simon Riggs <simon(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com>
Cc: Damian Wolgast <damian(dot)wolgast(at)si-co(dot)net>, PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: Column Redaction
Date: 2014-10-10 11:01:10
Message-ID: 5437BC76.50401@vmware.com
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On 10/10/2014 01:35 PM, Stephen Frost wrote:
> Regarding functions, 'leakproof' functions should be alright to allow,
> though Heikki brings up a good point regarding binary search being
> possible in a plpgsql function (or even directly by a client). Of
> course, that approach also requires that you have a specific item in
> mind.

It doesn't require that you have a specific item in mind. Binary search
is cheap, O(log n). It's easy to write a function to do a binary search
on a single item, passed as argument, and then apply that to all rows:

SELECT binary_search_reveal(cardnumber) FROM redacted_table;

Really, I don't see how this can possible be made to work. You can't
allow ad hoc processing of data, and still avoid revealing it to the user.

- Heikki

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