"Nikolay Vladimirov" <nikolay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > 2008/12/23 Eric Christensen <eric@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>: >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >> Hash: SHA1 >> >> Ralf Ertzinger wrote: >>> Hi. >>> >>> On Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:30:31 +0200, Nikolay Vladimirov wrote: >>> >>>> Ok. I'm not really sure about this but I think that full disk >>>> encryption on a software level >>>> with a key storng enough will bring some performance loss. And some >>>> people just want >>>> some confidential files to be encrypted. >>> >>> I'm running full-LV encryption for /home (and some other directories) in >>> my laptop, and the performance loss is nonexistant for me. Getting the >>> bits off the rotating rust takes quite longer then decrypting them. >>> >>> After all, all the cores in that thing have to be good for something. >>> >>> (Core Duo, 1.6GHz) >>> >> I've been running full disk encryption via LUKS since F8 with a 6 year >> old laptop. I don't see any noticeable performance loss. >> >> Just to comment on the whole disk versus just a folder in the /home, >> Windows did the same thing a number of years ago on XP (and since I >> believe but I don't know). You could select a folder and "encrypt" it. >> The crypto implementation was horrible and when people actually used it >> they never realized that they weren't getting ALL the sensitive data >> encrypted. There will always be a cache or tmp file laying around in >> the clear that will contain sensitive information. >> >> The DoD didn't like the use of the folder level encryption and has sense >> mandated full disk encryption for all portable devices. It saves the >> user from trying to figure out what is sensitive and what needs to be >> encrypted and breaking their storage schema just to put a specific file >> into a specific folder. The user will ALWAYS miss something and will >> ALWAYS be left vulnerable. >> >> Thanks, >> Eric Christensen >> > > That seems reasonable. I really see two good paths to this data security thing: > 1) Some hardware level encryption. Like in my thingpad I have some > trusted something thingie > and another hard drive security thing. This way there will be no > software complications. > 2) Encrypted /home since all of the user's sensitive data should be there. > > It's good to have some notice like "Full disk encryption is more > secure" and "Note that some cache saved outside of the /home dir may > be visible ( swap, /tmp, stuff)" and "Using some BIOS setting stuff is > more secure". > Some benchmarks of encrypted stuff vs non encrypted will be nice to > know for sure about the performance loss. > And some info in the installation media about this stuff maybe taken > from "Security Guide" in the wiki will be nice. > > Note: I'm not very competent in this whole encryption stuff. I'm just > offering some user point of view on this. I am using dm-crypt/LUKS on F10 and have been doing so for several releases. Since F9, when Anaconda began supporting encrypted partitions during installation, as opposed to the PITA manual set up previously, I have been using LVM to configure my disk. So '/', '/home' and swap are all encrypted as separate partitions within the LVM group configuration. I have a separate /boot partition outside the LVM, since that cannot be encrypted. Using hdparm to test sequential reads on the encrypted and unencrypted partitions, I get 30 MB/Sec on the former and 36 MB/Sec on the latter. So I am looking at a 15-20% hit on throughput and that has been pretty consistent over several releases. This is on a 4 year old Dell Inspiron laptop, with a 3.2Ghz P4 and a 7200 rpm HD. HTH, Marc Schwartz -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
