On Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 2:33 AM Qubes <qubes...@ak47.co.za> wrote: > On 7/29/20 1:56 AM, ludwig...@gmail.com wrote: > > *What if it saves a spare set of encryption keys somewhere in its flash > for > > the "lawful investigator" to find?* > > > I am not aware of any proof to support this line of thinking. >
In the case of an Opal 2.0 encrypted drive the key is *never* stored on the device. That is a requirement in oder to meet the defined Opal standard, and any manufacturer needs to prove that they meet that standard by submitting to a gauntlet of independently run certification tests. They can't fake passing these tests. The key(s) are generated at runtime by combining some internally generated entropy plus the user supplied 256 bit password. If you reset the drive then the internal entropy is regenerated as well, so even when having the users old password one can not dynamically generate the origional decryption key. This basically means that if you build in a failsafe mechanism into your software, to detect tampering, and flip the bits of your key and reset the drive, that data is not recoverable even when provided the prior password. Good luck at ever recovering that data even for your own purposes. Your "lawfull investigator" has no better chance than the KGB at ever recovering/seeing your data. For a dead man's kill switch, Just reset the device and force a power down and that data is no longer recoverable. If you do not fully reset the device and only powered down, then the data is only recoverable using the users 256 bit (hopefully randomized) password. Even then the drives internal logic will add an increasing delay with each invalid passrord attempt is made thus making even brute forcing the password completely impractical. Adding software encryption on top of that hardware layer encryption is a good belt and suspenders approach if you really don't trust the device itself to fully protect you. I had the pleasure of working with one of the origional designers of this standard, for almost a year while developing some very custom solutions with these devices. While the first Opal 1.0 devices certainly had some quirks, I trust the current line of Opal 2.0 SSD Sed devices to keep your data both safe and confidential. -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "qubes-users" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to qubes-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qubes-users/0a24d013-6bca-4d66-3e4c-1d6ab13fd3e8%40ak47.co.za > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "qubes-users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to qubes-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qubes-users/CAJ5FDnhmpeygJPvp1UQax2ji2jz7oW13xfW4QDZ1aB_HUtNk8Q%40mail.gmail.com.
