On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 04:47:22PM +0200, Jarkko Sakkinen wrote: > On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 01:26:05PM -0500, Martin Ross wrote: > > Hi Jarkko, > > > > I have been working with Yael on this project so I thought I might add > > a bit of background here around the use case that this series of > > patches is trying to address. > > > > At a high level we are trying to provide users of encryption that have > > key management hierarchies a better tradeoff between security and > > availability. For available and performance reasons master keys often > > need to be released (or derived/wrapped keys created) outside of a KMS > > to clients (which may in turn further wrap those keys in a series of > > levels). What we are trying to do is provide a mechanism where the > > wrapping/unwrapping of these keys is not dependent on a remote call at > > runtime. e.g. To unwrap a key if you are using AWS KMS or Google > > Service you need to make an RPC. In practice to defend against > > availability or performance issues, designers end up building their > > own kms and effectively encrypting everything with a DEK. The DEK > > encrypts same set as the master key thereby eliminating the security > > benefit of keeping the master key segregated in the first place. Mainly this part (would be enough to explain why it is there). BR, Jarkko