Intel Atom Disk Encryption Performance

[Kano]

Yes, keyloggers are also possible. Just a bit harder to add when you have got a laptop. For standard pcs the keyboard could be modified/replaced more easy.

[robotpoetry]

Encryption is interesting, but don't think it is unbreakable. Suspend can lead to new attacks:

http://citp.princeton.edu/memory/

Also when the pc is accessable to somebody with a live system the initrd can be modified - as this is not encrytped. And when you do that, you could store the key where you can find it when you come back...

True, although I guess you could boot from a usb-stick or a cd that you always carry with you, or otherwise can be sure has not been tampered with.

But it's actually very hard to defend against somebody with repeated physical access to your system. They could always install a hardware keylogger even if your software is unbreakable.

[R3MF]

trucrypt would make an interesting baseline.

[deanjo]

It would also be interesting to see an AMD thrown into the mix since they smoke the intels on stuff like SSL just to see if it carries over to things like drive encryption.

[Kano]

Encryption is interesting, but don't think it is unbreakable. Suspend can lead to new attacks:

http://citp.princeton.edu/memory/

Also when the pc is accessable to somebody with a live system the initrd can be modified - as this is not encrytped. And when you do that, you could store the key where you can find it when you come back...

[robotpoetry]

I'm glad for the Private directories in Intrepid, I think that's the Right Way to do things, less wasteful and all that.

Depends on how much security you require. Sensitive files may end up in your swap partition or in /tmp or /var for instance. With all partitions encrypted you can be certain that nothing ever touches the disc unencrypted, regardless of bad/unknown program behavior.

[janmartin]

Test impact of encryption of only /home please!

Hi,

your test is very interesting.

I am running an Acer Aspire 5633WLMI notebook with 4 GB RAM, and Ubuntu 8.04 and hard disc encryption by dm-crypt. Even VirtualBox is running without any problems and guests react really snappy!

However I wonder if the impact of just encrypt the /home folder will be significantly smaller on a 901?

Thanks!

[Rhettigan]

There's an interesting thing going on in the 901. I'm not sure if the SSD on the Linux 901 is separated like the SSD on the Windows 901.

Read http://techreport.com/articles.x/15442/4 for more information (it's also a thorough review of the Windows 901).

[ethana2]

I'm glad for the Private directories in Intrepid, I think that's the Right Way to do things, less wasteful and all that.

[curaga]

I was just going to say the same!

Trying this on an Atom is not interesting at all. A Via netbook would be way better.