Wed, 23 Nov 2005
Cheap commercial product uses ext3 filesystem and writes about it!
This is the first time I've Linux spotted something this public in a commodity
commercial product. The
Linksys
NSLU2 is this little device that you plug a
USB disk into one end and a Ethernet cable into the other and it gives you a
web browser interface to configure some "network attached storage". No PC
necessary. The cool part is it
uses
the ext3 filesystem, which is the native
Linux filesystem.
posted at: 19:53 | path:
/hacking |
permanent link to this entry
Mon, 07 Nov 2005
Offline Portable Encrypted Filesystems, Part 1
More on the Cruzer Micro. It's
tiny
and
fast. I've
been making great use of it under Linux with the
pmount
utility. Especially the -s argument which mounts in a read-optimized mode
and lets you rip out the mounted drive without damaging the filesystem.
But what about security? Wouldn't it be nice to have a encrypted filesystem on
the disk so sensitive files can be stored offline, portably? The disk comes
packaged with some bullshit Windows "freeware" applications to make an
encrypted filesystem but to no surprise they have licence restrictions and
limited functionality unless you purchase the "pro" version. The 2.6 Linux
kernel already contains an API for encrypted filesystems and lacks the licence
restrictions of previously mentioned Windows apps. This is my starting point.
In a nutshell, here's the process I found for doing this, the main drawback
being the necessity of a root shell.
- load cryptoloop kernel module
- decrypt filesystem against loopback driver
- enter password
- mount loopback filesystem
- use filesystem
- unmount filesystem
- encrypt filesystem by disabling loopback driver
This process is documented in the
Linux
loopback encrypted filesystem howto. Ignore everything about compiling your
kernel. This document is old and all the utilities are in the 2.6 kernel and
Debian stable. If you don't already know, a loopback filesystem is a single
file that can be mounted as if it is a physical disk partition. The advantage
of doing this on the USB key is you can keep the vfat filesystem on the key for
insecure files and have a single encrypted loopback file you mount when needed.
The filesystem can contain passwords and access information since it's
protected by encryption and a password that only you know.
Stay tuned for syncing your home directory to the encrypted filesystem, making
your Linux desktop truly portable and secure.
posted at: 12:48 | path:
/privacy |
permanent link to this entry
Wed, 02 Nov 2005
USB Flash Drive Benchmarks
I got a 1 gig USB flash drive called the Cruzer Micro, manufactured by Sandisk.
It's extremely tiny, about 2 inches long by 1/4 inch thick and it has some
pretty impressive read/write benchmarks with the default vfat filesystem:
Write 200M file
real 0m23.748s
user 0m0.009s
sys 0m1.158s
Read 200M file
real 0m18.151s
user 0m0.035s
sys 0m1.594s
Unfortunately, it has the same
write
limitations as Compact Flash.
posted at: 16:06 | path:
/media |
permanent link to this entry
Tue, 01 Nov 2005
Spam Poetry #2
ultram repentant by
Clyde Phelps <DiannaChampagnevolterra@mercurylofts.net>. Composed Tue Oct 25 02:36:16 2005
rack you togs me, prefatory . clapboard you creedal me, muck turnkey mylar .
unruly you pneumonia me, satyr gibbous . author you diluent me, begging . eugene
+you carryover me, heliotrope subsidiary countdown wheelchair .
posted at: 00:38 | path:
/spam |
permanent link to this entry
