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Re: Full disk encryption for OS X alternative to TrueCrypt


From: "CIURANA EUGENE (pr3d4t0r - Full Disclosure)" <fulldisclosure () cime net>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2014 14:57:39 -0700

 

On 2014-05-29 14:46, Mike Cramer wrote: 

You need to ask yourself
a question:

How well do you know coding and encryption handling to
ensure that your
software doesn't have unintentional back doors and/or
information
disclosure? This is a serious question because it requires
serious answers
when you're dealing with cryptography. The weakest
part of the security
system should not be the application.

What
libraries would you use for encryption? If any? I assume you would

leverage AES. Would the library you choose to use support AES-NI? Would
you
use the Intel CPU-based PRNG?
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RdRand)

I think it's reasonable to
assume that the "many eyes" approach to software
security doesn't
really work. So simply saying you'll release it as GPL I
don't think
should be considered "good enough" anymore when it comes to

encryption. The myriad of flaws in OpenSSL over the years both upstream
and
in distributions should be a serious wake-up call on this one.


My recommendation would be to use FileVault/Bitlocker/OS
implementations
unless you can come up with a good reason why not to
do so.

Mike, 

Well aware of the Intel PRNG issues and others
(http://twitter.com/ciurana -- I covered them when they happened and
continue to address them). 

Ditto on the encryption: I know it well
enough to come up with an initial implementation, and be conscious of
the limitations of my coding. Part of this plan consists on establishing
an auditing process from the get go, not unlike OpenBSD's, where
security is built into the process, not only into the code and reviewed
as an after thought. 

I want to have more than one block encryption
algorithm built into it, different digests, and so on. 

Libraries,
features selection, etc. are still in a preliminary stage. First I want
to gauge level of interest. 

Would you like to help? :) 

Cheers!


pr3d 

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