Cryptography

[Andrew Farris]

On Sat, 2009-10-24 at 17:18 +0800, Sandy Harris wrote:
> On 10/23/09, David Neeley <dbneeley at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > This morning, I read that a new security enhancement for the Ubuntu
> >  family of Linux operating systems has been launched. Using this, users
> >  can encrypt their /home directories--the idea being that stolen
> >  laptops and such would be very difficult to use to steal confidential
> >  files--generally stored either in /home itself or in a subsidiary
> >  directory to it. That sounds like an excellent idea to me.
> 
> It is, but like many crypto schemes it is easily subverted if someone
> can get into the machine and plant a keystroke logger. The "evil
> maid" who tampers with the computer in your hotel is one version
> of this scenario.

Another version is lead-pipe cryptography... aka if somebody wants your
info bad enough, they simply beat it out of you... no password
cracking/keylogging needed.

But, in the case of a stolen laptop, this could also mean just yanking
the hard drive and getting a new one... not everybody that steals
laptops are after personal info... lots of times they just want the
laptop


-- 
Andrew
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