[50] in The Cryptographic File System users list
Re: Protection against superuser?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tom Fitzgerald)
Thu Apr 23 12:00:08 1998
From owner-cfs-users@research.att.com Thu Apr 23 16:00:07 1998
Return-Path: <owner-cfs-users@research.att.com>
Delivered-To: cfs-mtg@bloom-picayune.mit.edu
Received: (qmail 19467 invoked from network); 23 Apr 1998 16:00:05 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO rumor.research.att.com) (192.20.225.9)
by bloom-picayune.mit.edu with SMTP; 23 Apr 1998 16:00:05 -0000
Received: from research.att.com ([135.207.30.100]) by rumor; Thu Apr 23 11:55:40 EDT 1998
Received: from amontillado.research.att.com ([135.207.24.32]) by research-clone; Thu Apr 23 11:57:34 EDT 1998
Received: from nsa.research.att.com (majordomo@nsa.research.att.com [135.207.24.155])
by amontillado.research.att.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA00176;
Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:57:17 -0400 (EDT)
Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by nsa.research.att.com (8.7.3/8.7.3) id LAA09375 for cfs-users-list; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:55:02 -0400 (EDT)
X-Authentication-Warning: nsa.research.att.com: majordomo set sender to owner-cfs-users@nsa.research.att.com using -f
Received: from research.att.com (research-clone.research.att.com [135.207.30.100]) by nsa.research.att.com (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA09371 for <cfs-users@nsa.research.att.com>; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:55:00 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from MIT.EDU ([18.69.0.28]) by research-clone; Thu Apr 23 11:56:54 EDT 1998
Received: from ORION3.MIT.EDU by MIT.EDU with SMTP
id AA28880; Thu, 23 Apr 98 11:56:58 EDT
Received: by ORION3.MIT.EDU (SMI-8.6/4.7) id LAA18815; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:56:52 -0400
Message-Id: <199804231556.LAA18815@ORION3.MIT.EDU>
X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.2 2/24/98
To: Manuel Panea <mpd@rzg.mpg.de>
Cc: cfs-users@research.att.com
Subject: Re: Protection against superuser?
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 23 Apr 1998 12:14:37 +0200."
<Pine.HPP.3.96.980423120219.4843G-100000@netadm.ipp-garching.mpg.de>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:56:52 EDT
From: Tom Fitzgerald <tfitz@mit.edu>
Sender: owner-cfs-users@research.att.com
Precedence: bulk
> So, am I missing something here? What's the point of cfs? How are you
> people using it?
The advantage over crypt (or PGP or whatever file-based encryption
you want to use) is, as you say, that you don't have to keep typing the
password over and over again. This can be a pretty big deal if you've got
your MH mailbox in cfs space, or if you want to grep a whole bunch of
documents.
What's really nice about cfs is
1) secure removable media
2) systems where nobody but me has the root password, but if I'm not there
somebody can walk up with a boot floppy or boot CD.
3) secure backups
