From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: David Woodhouse Subject: Re: Hi Date: 19 Feb 2003 15:44:14 +0000 Sender: linux-fsdevel-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <1045669453.19863.35.camel@passion.cambridge.redhat.com> References: <20030218150457.20101.qmail@webmail30.rediffmail.com> <20030218163422.GC1399@arthur.ubicom.tudelft.nl> <1045609648.18245.0.camel@imladris.demon.co.uk> <20030219153537.GB2516@arthur.ubicom.tudelft.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Rajaram Suresh Gaunker , linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, kernelnewbies@nl.linux.org Return-path: To: Erik Mouw In-Reply-To: <20030219153537.GB2516@arthur.ubicom.tudelft.nl> List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org On Wed, 2003-02-19 at 15:35, Erik Mouw wrote: > File level encryption gives an attacker information about the files on > your system. > > Suppose I can get hold of your disk and I want to know if you are > subscribed to linux-kernel. I just mount the disk, and if I find a file > called "dwmw2/Mail/linux-kernel", it gives me a large hint you are > indeed subscribed. No, I can't decrypt the file, but that wasn't my > purpose. I do however know the file metadata, like the filename, the > owner, modification time, length, etc. Not if the metadata were encrypted too. You speak only of block-level encryption and of file-level (i.e. application-based) encryption. But don't forget that there's a layer _between_ the applications and the block device. :) My question was what's wrong with doing encryption in the file system? -- dwmw2