On Fri, 04 Apr 2003 20:36:49 +0400, Edward Shushkin said: > Pierre Abbat wrote: > > > > On Friday 04 April 2003 09:47, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > If a process that has no key tokens attempts to read an encrypted file with > > the ordinary syscalls, does it get an error or the ciphertext? > > Error. Wanna backup - give a valid key, and backups will be cpu-expensive..
In this case, you want it to return the ciphertext, so the backup process can run cheaply and securely. Among other things, if somebody steals the backup tapes, they can't restore your system image..... And yes, this is a major issue for some sites - you've got some near-minimum wage tape monkey taking your corporate data to the offsite vault, and you want to be sure that even if he leaves with the tapes, it doesn't hurt you. Having the backup read the ciphertext is more secure (and faster) than having it encrypt on the way to the tape - among other things, this prevents the underpaid tape monkey from bribing the encryption key for backups from the backup admin, because they dont HAVE a key...
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