From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Mon, 20 Aug 2001 07:50:49 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Mon, 20 Aug 2001 07:50:39 -0400 Received: from mauve.demon.co.uk ([158.152.209.66]:53904 "EHLO mauve.demon.co.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Mon, 20 Aug 2001 07:50:24 -0400 From: Ian Stirling Message-Id: <200108201150.MAA08736@mauve.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: Encrypted Swap To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org (l) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 12:50:11 +0100 (BST) In-Reply-To: from "Richard B. Johnson" at Aug 19, 2001 09:27:28 PM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL2] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > Your idea of removing the RAM from the board and reading it > from a RAM-reader may actually show some valid data. However, > it is well thown that physical access to a machine or its > components while the power is applied and the machine is > running eliminates any possibility of security anyway. > You just keep the machine on its UPS and carry it away. Are there any current CPUs that can treat RAM as very fast swap, and be set up so that before writing a page of RAM from cache, it gets encrypted (obviously not designed for this) Essentially, the only data on the system that's in clear is initial boot code, and on-chip cache. Obviously, performance would suffer, going from Gb/s to Mb/s.