1) This patch doesn't do anything. "dcd_key" points to freed memory but it's not a NULL pointer. 2) The original pointer doesn't dereference "dcd_key" it just takes the address of one of the elements. I don't know the context and can't say for sure that it's a wrong thing to do. The code does look very suspect. Why is it checking permisions after we already removed the element and freed it? But it's not a dereferencing freed memory bug. regards, dan carpenter -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kernel-janitors" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html