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Re: LoopAES for MacOS

I am also a Mac user after years of hard-core Linux use. I still use a loop-aes Linux server as a backup/rsync server for the Macintosh desktop clients.

Loop-AES is a module which is intimately tied to the Linux block loopback driver. At the moment, no loop-aes port is available on Mac OS X.

However, the aespipe compiles and runs fine on Mac OS X, and I have used this tool to move data from loop-aes volumes to large (unencrypted) files that I can mount on the Macintosh (provided the encrypted volume used a file system that the Mac can use, hfsplus or vfat).

The Macintosh OS offers a loopback-block-device driver with AES encryption which is very similar in implementation to LUKS-with-dm- crypt on Linux.

You may use GPG-encrypted key in conjunction with hdiutil encrypted volumes to implement multi-factor authentication for your encrypted disk images:
# gpg --homedir /Volumes/some-usb-key/gpghome -d /Volumes/some-other- volume/diskKey.gpg | hdiutil attach encrypted-disk.dmg -encryption - stdinpass

Unfortunately, the source code for hdiutil encrypted volumes in not published by Apple (I think), and therefore has not been evaluated. It likely has problems with watermarking attacks - if not worse - that only loop-aes seems to address effectively.

It would be possible to port some of loop-aes to the Mac, I think, but it would need to work within the IOKit framework. Does anyone want to help me with this?

Regards,

- boyd
Boyd Waters
Socorro, New Mexico


On Feb 1, 2006, at 9:00 AM, IT3 Stuart Blake Tener, USN wrote:

Mr. Ruusu, et alia:

Recently I switched (about a year ago) from using a Windows/ Linux mix to
that of an Apple Macintosh running MacOS. This has proved to offer both Unix
as well as a reasonable "end user" application mix for me. That said, I like
and use the encryption within MacOS but it is not portable to Linux or other
operating systems.

Is there a version of LoopAES that can be compiled and used under MacOS
given that MacOS is a FreeBSD sub variant?

Thanks in advance.


--

Very Respectfully,

IT3 Stuart Blake Tener, USN
Beverly Hills, California
Amateur Radio Call Sign: N3GWG (General)
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Linux-crypto:  cryptography in and on the Linux system
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