3 ms·

It's interesting that XTS mode in general is seen as a weakness – this has implications for LUKS et. al. as well, not just TrueCrypt.

by creshal 12y ago

sdevlin 12y ago
Report coauthor here. The weaknesses of XTS mode are mostly limitations imposed by full-disk encryption. You should think of XTS as fine for FDE, but you also shouldn't put too many expectations on FDE. FDE is great if you leave your powered-off laptop in the back of a cab. It's not great if federal agents distract you and steal your powered-on-and-logged-in laptop at the library. You should definitely use FDE, but you should also separately encrypt the things that are really important to you.
JoachimSchipper 12y ago
This is a known issue with (almost) any full-disk encryption - see e.g. our own tptacek's http://sockpuppet.org/blog/2014/04/30/you-dont-want-xts/ http://sockpuppet.org/blog/2014/04/30/you-dont-want-xts/.
- keithpeter 12y ago
  "Someday you’ll leave a laptop in the passenger seat of your parked car and lose it when someone cinderblocks the window. When that happens, you’ll be glad for the failsafe of locked-at-wakeup." Or, in my case, leave the laptop in a rather nice leather messenger bag on the seat in the bus. Very reassuring that the average opportunistic thief (or as I like to imagine, the skint teenager) basically has to wipe the hard drive and reinstall an operating system. Now, on Linux, has anyone here been able to get luksSuspend and luksResume working with suspend to RAM on a Debian/Ubuntu system? That would be golden. http://waaaaargh.github.io/gnu&linux/2013/08/06/lukssuspend-with-encrypted-root-on-archlinux/ http://waaaaargh.github.io/gnu&linux/2013/08/06/lukssuspend-... http://askubuntu.com/questions/348196/how-do-i-enable-ubuntu-using-full-disk-encryption-to-call-lukssupend-before-sl http://askubuntu.com/questions/348196/how-do-i-enable-ubuntu...

It's interesting that XTS mode in general is seen as a weakness – this has implications for LUKS et. al. as well, not just TrueCrypt.

by creshal 12y ago

It's interesting that XTS mode in general is seen as a weakness – this has implications for LUKS et. al. as well, not just TrueCrypt.

sdevlin 12y ago

Report coauthor here. The weaknesses of XTS mode are mostly limitations imposed by full-disk encryption. You should think of XTS as fine for FDE, but you also shouldn't put too many expectations on FDE. FDE is great if you leave your powered-off laptop in the back of a cab. It's not great if federal agents distract you and steal your powered-on-and-logged-in laptop at the library. You should definitely use FDE, but you should also separately encrypt the things that are really important to you.

JoachimSchipper 12y ago

This is a known issue with (almost) any full-disk encryption - see e.g. our own tptacek's http://sockpuppet.org/blog/2014/04/30/you-dont-want-xts/ http://sockpuppet.org/blog/2014/04/30/you-dont-want-xts/.

keithpeter 12y ago
"Someday you’ll leave a laptop in the passenger seat of your parked car and lose it when someone cinderblocks the window. When that happens, you’ll be glad for the failsafe of locked-at-wakeup." Or, in my case, leave the laptop in a rather nice leather messenger bag on the seat in the bus. Very reassuring that the average opportunistic thief (or as I like to imagine, the skint teenager) basically has to wipe the hard drive and reinstall an operating system. Now, on Linux, has anyone here been able to get luksSuspend and luksResume working with suspend to RAM on a Debian/Ubuntu system? That would be golden. http://waaaaargh.github.io/gnu&linux/2013/08/06/lukssuspend-with-encrypted-root-on-archlinux/ http://waaaaargh.github.io/gnu&linux/2013/08/06/lukssuspend-... http://askubuntu.com/questions/348196/how-do-i-enable-ubuntu-using-full-disk-encryption-to-call-lukssupend-before-sl http://askubuntu.com/questions/348196/how-do-i-enable-ubuntu...