Re: [gentoo-user] Can RAM render useless the encryption of the / and swap partitions?

[Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com>]

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On Thursday 04 October 2007, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> On Donnerstag, 4. Oktober 2007, Liviu Andronic wrote:
> > On 10/4/07, Volker Armin Hemmann <volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de>
>
> wrote:
> > > in practice, the ram has to refreshed every few cycles (on reason why
> > > it is slow) because it is loosing its load so fast.
> > >
> > > In practice, after power is cut, everything in ram is lost.
> > >
> > > But not the stuff in swap....
> >
> > Considering that swap is encrypted, is it realistic for this "lost"
> > RAM data to be recovered? Again, take the case of a well funded
> > organization.
>
> that depends on the encryption. Some algorithms are easy to break. Some are
> not, some will be broken as soon as we get quantum-computers ;)

Are we missing the obvious?  The easiest think to 'break' is the weakest link 
in the chain.  In such a *hypothetical* case that would be the person who is 
in possession of the passphrase.  I would expect that such a person would be 
invariably labeled a "hacker" and condemned to eternity . . .

Cracking the encryption algorithm by computation would only be necessary if 
the said person was not able to disclose the key due to absence, or due to an 
inability to recover from the vegetative (or worse) state that the 
questioning methods may have inadvertently induced.

 :P
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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