Re: [gentoo-user] KDE, sddm etc security. Plus LVM question.

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Mar 21, 2022 at 12:17 PM Laurence Perkins <lperkins@×××××××.net> wrote:
>
> There was the ORWL project a few years ago.  Self-encrypting SSD drive with a TPM that would unlock it only in the presence of an encrypted RFID tag plus tapping in a code on the keypad, with all the sensitive bits wrapped in an active mesh system that would destroy the data if it detected any tampering.

While I can see this being useful if for some reason you don't have
support for encryption on the software side, something like this seems
like it wouldn't actually solve the unattended boot problem, since you
have to enter a PIN.  If you don't require the PIN and leave the RFID
tag sitting next to the drive all the time, then anybody can walk in
and take the drive and the tag and then read the data off the drive
bypassing the OS.  So it offers at best the same protection as a LUKS
passphrase entered at boot, and at worst no protection at all.  It
would have the advantage that you wouldn't be able to attack the
passphrase itself as no doubt the PIN only offers limited attempts and
would be very difficult to bypass.

The advantage of the TPM in the computer is that you can do unattended
verified boot, so the disk can only be decrypted if the OS boots
normally without tampering.  Obviously you're still open to OS
vulnerabilities, but the drive itself cannot be accessed except via
the OS.  The TPM chip can actually supervise the boot process.

Still an interesting product though.  I could see it being useful if
you had to run some specific OS that doesn't support disk encryption
natively.

-- 
Rich