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Authenticated Boot and Disk Encryption on Linux (2021)

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Re: Authenticated Boot and Disk Encryption on Linux (2021)

#31

Post by ongy »

ahartmetz wrote: post #8
fsflover wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right, however the existence of alternatives is extremely important and should always be mentioned.

If you're Lennart, the existence of alternatives is a nuisance, so no need to give them free publicity.

I wanted to avoid making this a "it's Lennart" point.

Even then, IME he's building software for 99% of users, which this covers. It can be quite annoying when he makes life hard for the remaining 1% (or fraction thereof), but I'm not as antagonistic to him as others.

Also, he kinda mentions it in the "Anything Else?" section. Not the firmware that doesn't ship with the MS keys at all, but the ability to insert your own keys and distrust the MS ones.

Re: Authenticated Boot and Disk Encryption on Linux (2021)

#32

Post by thro1 »

But.. isn't true that some Intel SSD Hardware Encryption is not (known to be) broken so far (unlike Samsung, WD, Crucial etc.)?

( https://www.tomshardware.com/news/crucial-samsung-ssd-encryp... https://community.wd.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-the-security... https://www.zdnet.com/article/flaws-in-self-encrypting-ssds-... https://techreport.com/news/256-bit-aes-encryption-broken-in... https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/134564/how-secu... and some Defcon(?) files I can't find now - no success with Intel ? )

Re: Authenticated Boot and Disk Encryption on Linux (2021)

#33

Post by BodyCulture »

thro1 wrote: post #32

But.. isn't true that some Intel SSD Hardware Encryption is not (known to be) broken so far (unlike Samsung, WD, Crucial etc.)? ( https://www.tomshardware.com/news/crucial-samsung-ssd-encryp... https://community.wd.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-the-security... https://www.zdnet.com/article/flaws-in-self-encrypting-ssds-... https://techreport.com/news/256-bit-aes-encryption-broken-in... https://security.stackexchange.com…

Have you been able to do a review of the code?

If yes: please share.

If not: why not?

Thanks!

Re: Authenticated Boot and Disk Encryption on Linux (2021)

#34

Post by bubblesnort »

This is of course a slippery slope argument, but not neccesarily wrong: I think systemd is moving a FLOSS operating system towards one that has source but comes in binaries. You get an initrd that's not built by you, tucked in a kernel also not built by you, runs the userspace from an immutable image also not built by you, which can be updated with binary deltas also not built by you, etc...

This makes sense from the perspective of making a kitchen appliance for the home consumer market. It makes no sense at all from the perspective of making a Unix-like operating system with four freedoms from scratch and ensure it stays that way.

Re: Authenticated Boot and Disk Encryption on Linux (2021)

#35

Post by thro1 »

BodyCulture wrote: post #33
thro1 wrote: post #32

But.. isn't true that some Intel SSD Hardware Encryption is not (known to be) broken so far (unlike Samsung, WD, Crucial etc.)? ( https://www.tomshardware.com/news/crucial-samsung-ssd-encryp... https://community.wd.com/t/what-do-you-think-of-the-security... https://www.zdnet.com/article/flaws-in-self-encrypting-ssds-... https://techreport.com/news/256-bit-aes-encryption-broken-in... https://security.stackexchange.com…

Have you been able to do a review of the code? If yes: please share. If not: why not? Thanks!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18385507 ?

Re: Authenticated Boot and Disk Encryption on Linux (2021)

#36

Post by kreetx »

bubblesnort wrote: post #34

This is of course a slippery slope argument, but not neccesarily wrong: I think systemd is moving a FLOSS operating system towards one that has source but comes in binaries. You get an initrd that's not built by you, tucked in a kernel also not built by you, runs the userspace from an immutable image also not built by you, which can be updated with binary deltas also not built by you, etc... This makes sense from the…

AFAICT, you would be able to build and sign everything yourself.

Re: Authenticated Boot and Disk Encryption on Linux (2021)

#37

Post by fsflover »

thro1 wrote: post #35
BodyCulture wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been able to do a review of the code? If yes: please share. If not: why not? Thanks!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18385507 ?

https://www.kicksecure.com/wiki/Malware_and_Firmware_Trojans...

Re: Authenticated Boot and Disk Encryption on Linux (2021)

#38

Post by hcfman »

michaelt wrote: post #12

> Instead of stealing your laptop the attacker takes the harddisk from your laptop while you aren't watching [...] makes a copy of it, and then puts it back. I've never understood why people keep making this incredibly weak argument for secure boot. Secure boot makes sense for a college computer lab, where any disk encryption is better than nothing, and you can't give everyone the password or it'd defeat the point. S…

Put a security system with a camera on it that sends an alert if someone gets close to it. Surely it would be a bizzare situation to have the highest level of cyber security and then not even be able to tell if someone broke physically into your house?

Quick survey. How many of you cyber security people out there "would not" be able to tell if someone broke into your house? :-) I'm betting a lot.

Re: Authenticated Boot and Disk Encryption on Linux (2021)

#40

Post by michaelt »

XorNot wrote: post #20
lofaszvanitt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do average people do when something happens with their secure boot? Search the web, and apply whatever they find, hoping that their system boots again. They want a solution under 1 minute, and don't care whether they expose their system. Secure boot is utterly complicated, a mess, and badly documented and people doesn't know shit about it. And we want this to be default for users? I like lennart's work, but this…

In a data loss situation you image the drive and decrypt it with your recovery key. That has nothing to do with secure boot. You won't lose access to the drive, the issue is that you want to mostly not use that recovery key all the time.

With normal full disk encryption, every user has memorised the secret needed to recover the disk, because you get reminded of it every time you boot.

The TPM is intentionally designed to make sure this is no longer the case.

Seems like a downgrade to me, from a disk recovery perspective.

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