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I am interested in working on a secure laptop meta-project. Laptop |
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security is interesting because some amount of physical security must |
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be addressed. Laptop theft is big buisiness, after all. |
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A well designed laptop operating system would be centered around encrypted |
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filesystems and would have many applications: |
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1. People who want to protect their personal data from theft. |
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2. Buisinesses that want to protect secrets stored on their fleet |
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of laptops. |
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3. Military applications -- laptops are all over today's battlefield |
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and a lucky ambush could easily reap classified information. |
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4. Etc... |
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A company named NAH6 (http://www.nah6.com) has a product like this. |
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They use Linux in order to boot Windows from an encrypted volume. |
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I would like to focus on a Linux environment as an end. The idea is that a |
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lost or stolen laptop will not give up any sensitive information. |
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Here are the components I envision including their current status: |
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1. Encrypted root filesystem. The 2.6 Linux kernel and util-linux 2.12 |
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will provide this using an encrypted loopback interface. A speedier |
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compromise is to use encrypted home directories only. I maintain a PAM |
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module, pam_mount, that mounts encrypted home directories transparently. [ If |
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you don't mind a shameless plug, there is an article about pam_mount in the |
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August Linux Journal. ] |
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2. Encrypted swap partition (or no swap at all). This is necessary because |
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otherwise programs could swap secrets to a plaintext disk. The 2.6 Linux |
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kernel's encrypted loopback interface can do this. |
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3. An inproved authentication system. Encryption algorithms are useless |
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if a weak key is used. Therefore it may be desireable to authenticate |
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when booting and mounting an encrypted root filesystem (or mounting an |
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encrypted home directory) using a physical token or other strong means. |
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4. An intrusion detection system. |
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5. Obviously, otherwise hardened software. |
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Comments? Has anyone else talked about this around here? |
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-- |
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Mike |
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-- |
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gentoo-hardened@g.o mailing list |
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