Re: Transparent drive encryption now in FreeBSD

[Greg Broiles]

At 04:22 PM 11/11/2002 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote:

Sorry, I'm new, but does this refer to the notion of splitting up a document "holographically", and placing the various pieces of numerous servers throughout the 'Net? (Any one piece will probably not contain a complete copy of the information, and is encrypted too, sot that it is not possible to say that Server X holds forbidden piece of info Y.) Andas I remember, removal of any one (or multiple) pieces on varying servers will do nothing towards elimating that content from the Universe.

Can any one confirm that this is more or less "Transparent Mass Sotage Encryption"?

It is not. See, e.g., <http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/geom/bde/g_bde.c>,
which includes the following helpful summary -

Add Geom Based Disk Encryption to the tree.

This is an encryption module designed for to secure denial of access
to the contents of "cold disks" with or without destruction activation.

Major features:

   * Based on AES, MD5 and ARC4 algorithms.
   * Four cryptographic barriers:
        1) Pass-phrase encrypts the master key.
        2) Pass-phrase + Lock data locates master key.
        3) 128 bit key derived from 2048 bit master key protects sector key.
        3) 128 bit random single-use sector keys protect data payload.
   * Up to four different changeable pass-phrases.
   * Blackening feature for provable destruction of master key material.
   * Isotropic disk contents offers no information about sector contents.
   * Configurable destination sector range allows steganographic deployment.

This commit adds the kernel part, separate commits will follow for the
userland utility and documentation.

This software was developed for the FreeBSD Project by Poul-Henning Kamp and
NAI Labs, the Security Research Division of Network Associates, Inc.  under
DARPA/SPAWAR contract N66001-01-C-8035 ("CBOSS"), as part of the DARPA CHATS
research program.

Many thanks to Robert Watson, CBOSS Principal Investigator for making this
possible.

Sponsored by:   DARPA & NAI Labs.

.. so you could say it's more like PGPDisk for FreeBSD, if you wanted to explain
it to a marketing drone somewhere.


--
Greg Broiles -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- PGP 0x26E4488c or 0x94245961