[patches] Add dmi kernel class support into HAL

[Richard Hughes]

On Tue, 2007-06-05 at 19:03 +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> On Tue, 05.06.07 17:49, Richard Hughes (hughsient at gmail.com) wrote:
> 
> > > That's the point; _I_ don't think it should be hidden from users nor
> > > from programs that wants to key off system-specific data. Others,
> > > however, think it should be hidden. And to that I ask: why don't we
> > > hide disk, usb, firewire etc. serial numbers? And the answer is: it's
> > > bloody useful information; just look at the /dev/disk/* tree for
> > > example.
> > 
> > I have to agree, if the data was hidden from me, I would just turn the
> > laptop over and read the serial number myself.
> 
> Those fields in the kernel are not protected to hide them from the
> human owner of the laptop. They are protected from non-root
> Unix-users. That's a big difference. If in HAl you make the decision
> to make these fields available for everyone that's OK. I just think
> that one has to go a more conservative way in the kernel then one has
> to go in HAL. Why? The kernel runs on all Linux installations, HAL
> (currently) only on desktops/laptops where security is usually not
> such highly valued. 

Fair point, I can respect that. David, do you want me to add a prober to
extract these two attributes to my patch?

Richard.