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TPMs enable hassle-free disk encryption, with no additional passphrase to enter at boot; I love that. It also prevents people from seeing me type the password (

TPMs enable hassle-free disk encryption, with no additional passphrase to enter at boot; I love that. It also prevents people from seeing me type the password (even better on Macbooks with a fingerprint reader, where I won't have to type my login password either.)

IIsi50MHz 5y ago
Then, naively, it would seem like anyone with physical access to the machine essentially has the drive decrypted for them auto-magical-ly at boot, defeating the purpose of encrypting. Of course, nothing prevents using additional encrypted containers within the filesystem for things of greater importance, but I digress… Regarding fingerprint: this is imaginary security, because people leave their fingerprints everywhere and social-engineering a person into placing fingerprints on something to be copied later is trivial. And if you go the extreme route of TV/film, fingers can be used after death or even removed. Now, as an additional layer of security, I like the idea of biometrics such as fingerprints. If Android would let me save fingerprints and enable recognition while still requiring lockscreen pattern, that would seem like a win.
- joconde 5y ago
  The laptop boots, the key goes into RAM, then the OS asks for a login password. I don't see a simple way to get the encryption key or log in without the password. Unless cold RAM attacks got much easier recently, I don't see where the problem is for an average user. Fingerprints are admittedly not a match against someone willing to collect mine and make a model of them, but I'm not expecting anyone to do this. If I were, I would disable the fingerprint sensor, of course. The point of these features is that they make it very easy to get to a reasonably good level of security. If the only option were an (admittedly more secure) strong passphrase to type at every boot, nobody would use it, which would be much worse.

IIsi50MHz 5y ago

Then, naively, it would seem like anyone with physical access to the machine essentially has the drive decrypted for them auto-magical-ly at boot, defeating the purpose of encrypting. Of course, nothing prevents using additional encrypted containers within the filesystem for things of greater importance, but I digress… Regarding fingerprint: this is imaginary security, because people leave their fingerprints everywhere and social-engineering a person into placing fingerprints on something to be copied later is trivial. And if you go the extreme route of TV/film, fingers can be used after death or even removed. Now, as an additional layer of security, I like the idea of biometrics such as fingerprints. If Android would let me save fingerprints and enable recognition while still requiring lockscreen pattern, that would seem like a win.

joconde 5y ago
The laptop boots, the key goes into RAM, then the OS asks for a login password. I don't see a simple way to get the encryption key or log in without the password. Unless cold RAM attacks got much easier recently, I don't see where the problem is for an average user. Fingerprints are admittedly not a match against someone willing to collect mine and make a model of them, but I'm not expecting anyone to do this. If I were, I would disable the fingerprint sensor, of course. The point of these features is that they make it very easy to get to a reasonably good level of security. If the only option were an (admittedly more secure) strong passphrase to type at every boot, nobody would use it, which would be much worse.