[Freedombox-discuss] BitTorrent Sync

[simo]

On Wed, 2013-01-30 at 22:10 +0100, Elena ``of Valhalla'' wrote:
> On 2013-01-30 at 09:28:14 -0800, FreedomBox-Discuss.NeoPhyte_Rep at OrdinaryAmerican.net wrote:
> > Doesn't that assume the devices are never the subject of a search warrant?
> 
> in some countries in that case simple encryption isn't enough to protect
> you, since you are also forced to reveal your password by law.
> 
> In other countries the same applies, not because you are forced 
> by the law, but because the police have no incentive not to 
> use unlawful methods to force you to reveal your password.
> 
> In either cases, a solution that works at the filesystem layer is 
> probably going to work better, expecially for the hiding part.

Actually hiding data in a fully encrypted partition is much easier and
*safe* than encrypting only some files at the filesystem level and
hoping they won't find them.

A simple block level analysis will easily find encrypted data via
statistical means if only some data is encrypted, also copies of the
data may be easily found in swap spaces and temporary files.

There are also full encryption tools that allow you to have 2 sets of
data, one real and one fake and innocuous that will be revealed by using
a different password in a non-detectable way.

So a proper full encryption is much better to protect one person privacy
at multiple levels.

Last but not least disposal of encrypted disks is relatively safe even
if you forget (or don't know how) to wipe the data. Unless you leak your
encryption keys/password the disk is simply unreadable by anyone that
should pick it up once you dispose of it.

Simo.

-- 
Simo Sorce
Samba Team GPL Compliance Officer <simo at samba.org>
Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat, Inc. <simo at redhat.com>