GPGME and custom memory allocators

[Robert J. Hansen]

>> I'm hoping people can test the bjk/master branch of 
>> git://git.gnupg.org/gpgme.git before being pulled into master. It
>> adds custom memory allocators to gpgme much like libassuan and
>> libgcrypt.
> 
> Why?

There are lots of reasons to do this -- maybe you're on a Beowulf
cluster and you want to make sure memory gets allocated on the same
machine the process is running on, to minimize access time.  Maybe
you've got memory with some really exotic security safeguard, like
embedded in tamper-resistant epoxy to make various forensic techniques
more difficult, and you want to make sure memory gets allocated there
and not in an easier-to-attack DIMM.  Maybe...

Writing custom memory allocators sounds really exotic, but it's a fairly
common bit of systems-level programming.  GnuPG has its own custom
allocator built into it, for instance, to provide some software-based
security guarantees to the memory block.