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Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2006 10:59:17 -0400
From: "Bob Johnson" <fbsdlists@gmail.com>
To: "Barkley Vowk" <bvowk@math.ualberta.ca>
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References: <20060906210021.C2428B82C@shodan.nognu.de>
	<20060906151041.N37483@3jane.math.ualberta.ca>
Cc: freebsd-security@freebsd.org, Frank Steinborn <steinex@nognu.de>
Subject: Re: Getting GELI Keys from Floppy
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On 9/6/06, Barkley Vowk <bvowk@math.ualberta.ca> wrote:
> You are a complete madman. You want to protect your data with a key stored
> on the most completely and utterly unreliable form of data storage still
> lamentably in use? Its not the 1970's anymore, get a real data storage
> medium!
>
> Get a usb flash drive, from there its a simple matter of changing the geli
> script to mount a specific usb device before starting. Look in
> /etc/rc.d/geli and geli2. I'd put your mounting and checks between the
> kldstat and the "if [ -z" in the geli_start() sub.

I have floppies from the 1980s that are still readable, but I have
never had a USB flash drive last more than six months when actually in
use.  For important data, I trust a floppy far more than I trust a
flash drive. The big problem with floppies is they don't hold enough
data. For that matter, writeable CDs and DVDs have proven to be much
less reliable than floppies, too.

- Bob