On Thu, February 21, 2008 6:50 pm, Andrew Lentvorski wrote: > Lan Barnes wrote: >> 2. Amnesty International in a hostile country: The user has two log ons. >> As jsixpack, the encrypted drive isn't mounted and the app doesn't show >> its menus. As jcool, the drive is mounted and the data is available. The >> machine is powered up/down for use. There is a shutdown/umount switch on >> jcool's menu. If the door is kicked in > > Again. Why does everybody assume this is the main threat (ie. door > kicked in and computer seized)? > > One of my favorite "Demotivational" posters: > http://www.fivefourteen.net/motivational-posters/fascism.jpg > > Anyone stupid enough to try to seize my computer by force to get it as > evidence is not someone I'm that worried about in a computer sense. > Standard encryption is likely to work well-enough. The fact that they > are likely to beat me senseless is far scarier. > > The true foe is someone like the US federal government. They can take > my computer temporarily at a checkpoint and duplicate my hard drive. > Then they can snag my passphrase via all manner of emissions scanners. > > Now they have my hard drive and my passphrase, *and* I have no > *knowledge* that they do. > > That's scary. > > -a
Yes. The recent Princeton study was a door-kicking vulnerability. i.e., they have to have physical access relatively soon after you've used your passphrase and powered down (I may heve read it wrong, but that seems to me to be their thrust). Like you, I'm much more concerned that they'll skip the computer and grab me. Any of the 'enhanced techniques' that "aren't torture" would have my passphrase out in a whipstitch. As for seizing my laptop, that alone is enough to constitute a torture. -- Lan Barnes SCM Analyst Linux Guy Tcl/Tk Enthusiast Biodiesel Brewer -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
