[mdlug] Disk encryption - once copied its vunerable

[Dave Arbogast]

Raymond McLaughlin wrote:

>gib at juno.com wrote:
>  
>
>> 
>>Okay, I understand that having the key makes it a lot easier
>>to decrypt the data. But isn't it possible to decrypt the data
>>by brute force too?   So, encryption is not completely safe, right?
>>I was watching the new Knight Rider (talking car) on TV. The
>>inventor's laptop was stolen by the bad guys.  But then a statement
>>was made that they recovered the laptop and the encryption was not
>>broken.  I think that once the bad guys have a laptop they can make
>>a copy of the data and then they can allow the laptop to be returned.
>>They can take their time cracking the data.
>>    
>>
>
>The questions become: How much time? and How much resources (computing
>power). Remember that every bit added to a key's length *doubles* the
>number of possible values of the key, hence doubling the difficulty of
>brute recovery. I've seen estimates putting the power required to break
>a 256 bit key at something like "all the computers in the world running
>nonstop for the rest of the age of the universe." But I'm not sure how
>good the starting numbers were.
>
Yeah, by far easier to find some weakness in the architecture and 
exploit that.

-dave