SecretPipe

SecretPipe is a software tool designed to hide secrets by creating a pipe where they can be stored. With the use of the SecretPipe library, it's possible to create a new instance of this pipe, hide secrets within it, and then retrieve them securely. Here's how it works: you create a new instance of the SecretPipe library and call the hide method to write secrets to the pipe. When you need to read a secret back, you can do so using the reveal method.

It's important to note that this trick is only effective if the password is deleted from memory and kept in plaintext for as little time as possible. The pipe trick is primarily designed for long-running processes such as mail checkers where the password needs to be used infrequently. The password is stored inside the pipe, which is located in kernel memory space, and can be read back when required.

Although this simple trick is still somewhat effective against attackers, the implementation of SecretPipe is lacking in some areas. There is no way in Perl to ensure that the characters in the string you pass in are securely deleted, which is a weakness that could be exploited by a skilled attacker. To address this limitation, the author of SecretPipe recommends rewriting it in XS and providing a primitive to zero the contents of a string for real.