Re: [dm-crypt] Re2: nuke password to delete luks header

[Jonas Meurer <jonas@freesources.org>]

Am 14.01.2014 08:39, schrieb Arno Wagner:
> On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 06:01:38 CET, Jim O'Gorman wrote:
> [...] 
>> I understand that you are concerned about the risk of being sent to jail
>> but I am not sure that concern is inline with what we are encountering in
>> the real world.  If you look at the ACLU's guidance on the matter,
>> https://www.aclunc.org/blog/privacy-your-laptop-international-borders, the
>> risk of jail is not even mentioned.
> 
> I recommend you read that page again:
> 
> "This can put you in a very bad situation - disclosing the data or lying 
>  to law enforcement. Lying to US Customs or other law enforcement officer 
>  may result in criminal prosecution.  Just ask Martha Stewart, who was 
>  indicted, under Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001, for lying 
>  to federal government agents."
> 
> Now, a security professional will just stay truthful, understanding
> this. An ordinary person may lie and thereby land themselves in very 
> hot water.

While I get your arguments, I fail to understand why you oppose against
implementing the nuke password feature to cryptsetup.

From a theoretic point of view, this feature might not add much security
to your computer. But reality is more than just theory, and as Jim
clearly pointed out (and I agree with him), there's at least some
situations - at least for some people - where the nuke password feature
makes a whole lot of sense.

Also consider that there's many officials and (police) officers that
dont' know nothing about encryption techniques. Now imagine a situation
where one of these officers/officials powers on your laptop and asks you
to enter the password just before he's going to seize it. These
situations do happen (I know for sure). And they as well happen in
countries that don't send you to prison for denying to give them your
password.
While your supersafe password might be unbreakable for the forensics,
you will sleep much more soundly at night when you where able to nuke
all keyslots before, won't you?

Thanks to Jim for describing realworld szenarios where the nuke password
feature might be of help. I would love to see it implemented upstream,
and am considering to add it to the Debian package a least.

Kind regards,
 jonas