Re: Row data is reflected in DETAIL message when constraints fail on insert/update - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Tom Lane
Subject Re: Row data is reflected in DETAIL message when constraints fail on insert/update
Date
Msg-id 7057.1561040804@sss.pgh.pa.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Row data is reflected in DETAIL message when constraints fail oninsert/update  (Karsten Hilbert <Karsten.Hilbert@gmx.net>)
Responses Re: Row data is reflected in DETAIL message when constraints fail on insert/update
Re: Row data is reflected in DETAIL message when constraints fail oninsert/update
List pgsql-general
Karsten Hilbert <Karsten.Hilbert@gmx.net> writes:
> On Thu, Jun 20, 2019 at 01:26:23PM +0200, Shay Rojansky wrote:
>> In other words, this isn't about verbosity, but about sensitive data. It
>> seems like a specific knob for sensitive information may be required, which
>> would be off by default and would potentially affect other fields as well
>> (if relevant).

> A specifig knob for "sensitive data" cannot be supplied by
> PostgreSQL because it cannot know beforehand what information
> will be considered sensitive under a given, future, usage
> scenario.

Yeah, it's fairly hard to see how we could respond to this complaint
without lobotomizing our error messages to the point of near uselessness.
Almost any non-constant text in an error report could possibly be seen
as hazardous.

More generally: I find this complaint a little confusing.  We did not
consider reporting the "show row contents" DETAIL to the client to be a
security hazard when it was added, because one would think that that's
just data that the client already knows anyway.  I'd be interested to see
a plausible use-case in which the message would reflect PII that had not
been supplied by or available to the client.

            regards, tom lane



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