Re: [dm-crypt] Is erasing hard disk drive mandatory?

From: Arno Wagner <arno@wagner.name>
To: dm-crypt@saout.de
Subject: Re: [dm-crypt] Is erasing hard disk drive mandatory?
Date: Fri, 30 May 2014 20:08:25 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20140530180825.GA24590@tansi.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAMFqqRpk7b_1awwWOE_08JFLhtxRmzHDubz69ek96CHqRxQjCA@mail.gmail.com>

It requires psecific attack situations. For example, some application
could write data in a specific pattern that would then be visible in
the raw container. Or you could determine the size of some files or
the type of the filesystem.

Not anything usually critical, but something to keep in mind
and when being careful the crypto-wipe step is advisible.

Arno

On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 17:17:27 CEST, Stephen Cousins wrote:
> Hi Heinz,
> 
> I agree. The field, by it's very nature, has varying levels of paranoia
> (rightly so as we are seeing these days) and this level is more than what I
> need for my purposes so I can save some time by not having to send random
> data to all of the drives during the build process.
> 
> Steve
> 
> 
> On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 11:07 AM, Heinz Diehl <htd@fancy-poultry.org> wrote:
> 
> > On 30.05.2014, Stephen Cousins wrote:
> >
> > > I see. So it has nothing to do with how well the data is encrypted. Just
> > > another level of protection..
> >
> > Maybe. I think the practical effects are negligible. With the first
> > minutes of use of such a disk, temporary files get written to it,
> > files get deleted, new ones get written and old stuff gets
> > overwritten. If the encryption is secure, all that doesn't really
> > matter.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > dm-crypt@saout.de
> > http://www.saout.de/mailman/listinfo/dm-crypt
> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> ________________________________________________________________
>  Steve Cousins             Supercomputer Engineer/Administrator
>  Advanced Computing Group            University of Maine System
>  244 Neville Hall (UMS Data Center)              (207) 561-3574
>  Orono ME 04469                      steve.cousins at maine.edu

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-- 
Arno Wagner,     Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform.,    Email: arno@wagner.name
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A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers. -  Plato