Collaborate Disseminate
As far as I’m aware, a locked iOS is considered very safe. No one, who does not know the PIN cannot unlock the phone. While the PIN seems weak on the first glance (4 digits?) it is actually strong, because enough failed attempts = data is … Continue reading How does iOS / Android device encryption work?
I have recently set up a computer with full disk encryption, and I decided not to encrypt the swap partition for performance reasons. I have been using ssh-agent on another computer to load my private keys, and was wondering if it were pos… Continue reading SSH-Agent writing unencrypted keys to swap memory
Modern Android devices have encryption for the storage. It is secured with a key which is derived from the lock screen and a hardware bound key.
We know that the rate limiting mechanism prevents brute forcing the PIN on the device, but wha… Continue reading How does a pattern or a PIN secure an Android device with encryption?
Due to certain circumstances, we are forced to keep some copyrighted data in an external hard disk. due to privacy concerns, we want to allow this data to be accessed only from a trusted/office provided device. if this external disk is con… Continue reading Protect the content of External Disk/USB Storage
I want to use my PC both for gaming and for stuff like keeping cryptocurrency wallets, online banking, etc. I need to install games as admin but of course I don’t want them to be able to access my wallets data in any way even if they have … Continue reading Isolating encrypted and unecnrypted Windows installations and protecting the boot loader
Is it possible? How? Should I encrypt my swap partition? If I don’t encrypt it, basically I make encryption in the main partition useless.
I need to set up full disk encryption on my linux laptop.
Questions:
Does an encryption key on a USB pendrive protect against rubber-hose cryptanalysis?
Is it true that the key on a pendrive is riskier than a password because someone can … Continue reading Full disk-encryption key vs password
I bought a new 2 TB SSD (NVMe). I want to turn it entirely into a veracrypt volume, nearly all of the drive being for a hidden volume. First, I told it to do a “quick format”, which was done instantly. Because in https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/discussion/general/thread/38c20fbe/ someone wrote
I would still avoid using Quick Format option on new drives/partitions because the “data” patterns will be different between a new drive and the VeraCrypt encrypted “data” patterns. The documentation explains the scenarios that may matter to you.
now, I unchecked “quick format”. This will take 11 hours just for the outer volume and probably another 11 hours for the inner volume.
I read in https://www.veracrypt.fr/en/Creating%20New%20Volumes.html
If unchecked, each sector of the new volume will be formatted. This means that the new volume will be entirely filled with random data. Quick format is much faster but may be less secure because until the whole volume has been filled with files, it may be possible to tell how much data it contains (if the space was not filled with random data beforehand). If you are not sure whether to enable or disable Quick Format, we recommend that you leave this option unchecked. Note that Quick Format can only be enabled when encrypting partitions/devices, except on Windows where it is also available when creating file containers.
which sounds like it would be okay to use “quick format”. Afterall, I guess that a new SSD has random data on it. However, as the above post said, maybe differently random data. I guess via measuring the entropy, if I piece the accepted answer of https://superuser.com/questions/1569622/what-is-quick-formatting-in-veracrypt together correctly for my case.
However, Can someone access my veracrypt quick formatted container’s files more easily than if I’d performed a full format? seems to confirm that “quick format” is okay, but I am not sure if I am reading this correctly. However,
The answers in https://www.reddit.com/r/VeraCrypt/comments/12esgyh/quick_format_and_security/ say on the one hand
It is trivial to accertain what part is filled and what is “factory empty” portion of your device if you do not full format it with random data.
on the other hand
Running Quick Format on an empty drive before formatting the VeraCrypt volume results in VeraCrypt randomizing the drive, anyway.
I also read
So, do I need to format both the outer and the inner (hidden) volume without using “quick format” in order to have plausible deniability?
Continue reading Do I retain plausible deniability if using "quick format" in veracrypt on new SSD?
The luksFormat command accepts iteration time as a parameter, not iterations. That obviously leads to quite different number of iterations depending on the hardware doing the encryption. However if I am protecting the same data on system… Continue reading LUKS: How many iterations are enough?
When considering external drives for secure long-term storage of sensitive data, what are the pros and cons of using the same password for encrypting all files versus using random passwords for each file (or junk of files), and how does th… Continue reading Choosing Encryption Strategies for Secure Long-Term Storage of Sensitive Data