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Date:      Wed, 27 Jul 2022 01:25:39 +0000
From:      bugzilla-noreply@freebsd.org
To:        doc@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   [Bug 265433] In geli section, add explanation to data integrity management
Message-ID:  <bug-265433-9-QI4OJxim33@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/>
In-Reply-To: <bug-265433-9@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/>
References:  <bug-265433-9@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/>

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https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3D265433

--- Comment #2 from clear.screen@orange.fr ---
As the GELI manual page [GELI(8)] say : the additional option -a "Enable da=
ta
integrity verification" [...] "If the option is not given, there will be no
authentication, only encryption."

The encryption/decryption process provide confidentiality (prevent
non-authorized people to grant access to the data). Such algorithm with
cryptographic mechanism ensure that encrypted data with genuine
encryption/decryption key(s) will be decrypted but could not offer any
guarantee against data corruption at storage layer or during computation.

The whole data integrity process can rely (in sequence) on=20
- checking and correction mechanism of the hardware storage unit (in case o=
f a
silent hardware failure)
- data integrity checking mechanism of the cryptographic layer (in case of
failure in hardware or software implementation)
- finally, on the data integrity checking and correction mechanism of the
filesystem

Any failure on this dependency chain will lead to data corruption which is =
not
related to an attacker but to hardware/software failure.

In the case of the media itself does not report errors (damaged flash devic=
es
for example), altered encrypted blocks will lead to corrupted data output.=
=20

Thus, retrieving data (if it's possible) will only rely on the filesystem
capacities.

Having data authentication enabled on the encryption/decryption layer would
allow warning at early and low-level stage.

--=20
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