Re: Encrypted filesystem

Stephan Meyer (sensei@munich.netsurf.de)
Fri, 31 Jan 1997 17:44:57 +0100 (MET)


I live in Munich, Germany.
And I've been thinking about hacking a plain simple (but secure) version
of an IDEA protected filesystem. Am I right that it would be sufficient to
add a module on top of the loop filesystem and just under ext2fs? That
way, one could have the encrypted filesystem in a huge file and mount it
as a loop-device using the key.

It's my understanding that the IDEA algorithm is copyrighted, but free to
use for noncommercial applications. Is that right? That way, we probably
couldn't include something like that in the kernel source tree.

Is there a strong but secure algorithm? (I do not trust DES :)

Importing into the US is legal, I think. I could put up stuff on my FTP
space.

Please excuse, if this sounds like newbie-sh*t. I would be willing to
invest a considerable amount of work into a *secure* non-DES filesystem.

Sinc., Stephan

On Fri, 31 Jan 1997 aidas@ixsrs4.ix.netcom.com wrote:
> Because of inane U.S. export restrictions, cryptographic software can't be
> exported from the United States. This is the main reason we don't have
> cryptographic filesystem support in the kernel, I understand, particularly
> since Linus will be moving to the U.S. soon.
>
> Has anyone outside the U.S. pondered keeping an up-to-date set of patches
> available on a non-U.S. FTP site? I have some patches, but they fail when
> applied to the newer kernels. I can change them for myself, but for
> everyone else I can't do anything since I'm in the U.S.
>
> --
> "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the
> world; The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of
> innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full
> of passionate intensity." -- "Second Coming" by Yeats.
>
>
>

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Stephan Meyer
+49-89-4301114
Stephan.Meyer@munich.netsurf.de
http://fatman.mathematik.tu-muenchen.de/~meyer/
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