Re: [RFC] mtd: ubi: UBI Encryption

[Timo Ketola <Timo.Ketola@exertus.fi>]

Hi,

I have been lurking in this list for a long time and this is my first
post here. I decided to write because I think I have yet another idea
for this one:

On 10.08.2015 22:56, Andrew Murray wrote:
> ...
>  - My work around for this erased flash issue was to conditionally
>    encrypt/decrypt only when the input data is not 'all bits set'. This had
>    minimal impact on UBI/UBIFS/etc but it is possible (though very unlikely)
>    that the output of an encryption algorithm is 'all bits set' - Thus when you
>    later attempt to decrypt the 'all bits set' cipher text we incorrectly treat
>    it as erased flash so return it verbatim and thus cause corruption. I've not
>    seen this issue occur despite reading and writing more than 50GB of data.
> ...

Why not postprocess the data so that the encrypted FF becomes FF again
like this:

Lets say clear text data is I, encrypted data is O, encryption function
is e() and decryption function is d(). Then, what is normally done, is
of course:

Write: O = e(I)
Read: I = d(O)

Calculate F = ~e(FF), where F is encrypted and inverted version of 'all
bits set' (FF) data, and modify writing and reading:

Write: O = e(I) ^ F
Read: I = d(O ^ F)

Now encrypting FF input results in FF output and vice versa.

Just wanted to introduce an idea.

--

Timo