[17258] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: How secure is the ATA encrypted disk?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dan Kaminsky)
Wed May 25 18:26:58 2005
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 13:49:08 -0700
From: Dan Kaminsky <dan@doxpara.com>
To: "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>
Cc: cryptography@metzdowd.com
In-Reply-To: <42569F99.1160.3F073CC@localhost>
>From what I've heard, datapath to the disk. I've read enough of the
specs to see they're well aware a worm could brick a couple hundred
thousand hard drives.
--Dan
James A. Donald wrote:
>Every ATA disk contains encryption firmware, though not
>all bioses allow you to use it.
>
>There is a master and a user password, 32 bytes each. If
>you set them both to the same value, and that value is a
>strong 32 byte password, then the disk can only be
>booted or accessed by entering that password.
>
>This disk firmware is what password protected laptops
>use. It exists on most PCs, though most of them have no
>bios firmware to use it.
>
>How strong is this standard - could someone bypass it by
>taking a soldering iron to the disk? Is the disk
>encrypted, or just the datapath to the disk?
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