Re: the cold-boot attack

[Jacob Appelbaum <jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

markus reichelt wrote:
> * Jacob Appelbaum <jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
>> Our paper is clear.
> 
> Link?
> 

Hi Markus,

Here's our official paper distribution point. I suggest the youtube
video as well, it's pretty nicely done:
http://citp.princeton.edu/memory/

> As already stated numerious times, if theres root access (eg full
> access to a machine's memory, including a virtual machine) it's a
> piece of cake to get one's hands on the key. 

Our attack works even after a full power off of the system.

>Key scrubbing in
> loop-AES only slightly complicates the issue, but as it has been
> publicly proven to work to snatch ssh keypairs from memory, it's just
> emphasising an attack vector that exists by design. And all the other
> publicly known linux crypto implementations suffer from it.

Yes. Of course.

> 
> IIRC, key scrubbing has been implemented in loop-AES because some
> Gutmann paper mentioned possible key recovery from imprinted RAM
> patterns.

Yes. This isn't the same issue.

> 
> Please, before stating your claims be sure to clearly point out your
> attack vector.
> 

Feel free to read the paper and let us know what you think.

Regards,
Jacob Appelbaum

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