4 ms·

Classic WD. So you dodged a bullet. I had WD drive that USB board failed and that board contained encryption key. So I lost data even if I could install the boa

Classic WD. So you dodged a bullet. I had WD drive that USB board failed and that board contained encryption key. So I lost data even if I could install the board from other drive. And they had a nerve to advertise this as a feature pro consumer! (It encrypted the data even if you didn't turn encryption on)

ziml77 6y ago
That's some serious bullshit logic from them. What the fuck does encryption do if the key is stored right next to the drive?
- dogma1138 6y ago
  The key is always stored with the data either on the drive itself in an unencrypted hidden partition or on an attached storage/security coprocessor. The key is encrypted with a KEK which is derived from a users password. What many of these encrypted drives do is just always run the encryption but with either a default key which is all zeros or with an unencrypted key until the user enrolls into the encryption feature at which point the key will be encrypted with their password or fingerprint.
freedom42 6y ago
Wow that's actually really sad. Imagine that happening to people without backups (means many regular people). The way I do it is I format the drive on Linux. Then format it as ext4 with LUKS encryption. Were you on Windows?
- dogma1138 6y ago
  The encryption is transparent, the key is stored on a security coprocessor if the encryption isn’t “turned on” the key simply isn’t encrypted with a KEK which is derived from your password. Sometimes the default key is also all zeros/ones until the user has initialized the encryption function at which a random key is generated and encrypted with a KEK. W/E you format the drive with or too or how you use it doesn’t matter, you don’t have raw access to drives anymore (sectors, clusters etc don’t mean anything anymore) with or without encryption the controller basically emulates an “ideal drive” to the OS and does it’s own thing.

ziml77 6y ago

That's some serious bullshit logic from them. What the fuck does encryption do if the key is stored right next to the drive?

dogma1138 6y ago
The key is always stored with the data either on the drive itself in an unencrypted hidden partition or on an attached storage/security coprocessor. The key is encrypted with a KEK which is derived from a users password. What many of these encrypted drives do is just always run the encryption but with either a default key which is all zeros or with an unencrypted key until the user enrolls into the encryption feature at which point the key will be encrypted with their password or fingerprint.

freedom42 6y ago

Wow that's actually really sad. Imagine that happening to people without backups (means many regular people). The way I do it is I format the drive on Linux. Then format it as ext4 with LUKS encryption. Were you on Windows?

dogma1138 6y ago
The encryption is transparent, the key is stored on a security coprocessor if the encryption isn’t “turned on” the key simply isn’t encrypted with a KEK which is derived from your password. Sometimes the default key is also all zeros/ones until the user has initialized the encryption function at which a random key is generated and encrypted with a KEK. W/E you format the drive with or too or how you use it doesn’t matter, you don’t have raw access to drives anymore (sectors, clusters etc don’t mean anything anymore) with or without encryption the controller basically emulates an “ideal drive” to the OS and does it’s own thing.