On 11/01/2024 at 12:56, Luca Boccassi wrote:
Yes it is a firmware feature, so it depends on the hardware, and in all drives I know of that will be the case, yes. From that point of view, to me it doesn't seem that far away from dm-crypt using the CPU's AES- NI to actually encrypt/decrypt data, or anything else implemented in hardware/firmware that the installer now supports out of the box with non-free-firmware being enabled by default. If I am trusting Intel to handle my data in their wifi firmware, and in their CPU microcode, and memory controllers, and whatever else is on my hardware, it seems strange to start worrying once the line is crossed into the NVME firmware...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't CPUs and wifi controllers pass-through devices which do not persistently store encryption keys or data and whose encrypted output can be inspected to check if they are doing the right thing so that you do not have to blindly trust them ?
Self-encrypted drives persistently store encryption keys and data. Can their encrypted output reliably be inspected ? Can they be trusted if the manufacturer implemented some hidden mechanism allowing to recover the data when customers lost their password (like BIOS manufacturers do) which will be leaked sooner or later ?
