[X4U] Macintosh security (How to protect files and Applications for stolen computers)

[Richard Gilmore]

I saw a Discovery Channel show by a mathematician which was all about
encryption and I think it said if the encryption uses a public and private
key it's essentially unbreakable because the key number is so large that it
would require hundreds of years of computing power to factor them? Such as
RSA?

Richard


On 16/11/05 1:37 PM, "David Ledger" <dledger at ivdcs.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>> From: "John Richardson" <richards at spawar.navy.mil>
>> Host system is an iMac running OSX 10.3.5 with a DVD burner.
>> Assumptions
>> 0) The physical security has been compromised.
>> 1) The basic first level strategy is a blanket encryption of the home
>> directory using file vault.
>>  . . . . .
>> General Question: How good is the File Vault and disk utility encryption?
>> What are the commercial programs that have better (stronger) encryption.
> 
> The best encryption uses methods that are open and public, and rely
> on a well tested well known algorithm, the key and the key length
> alone to provide the security. (Other than anything that the NSA or
> the military may have and that is not generally known about - I see
> you are ...navy.mil). Security by obscurity is only obscure. Read
> Bruce Schneier's 'Secrets & Lies' if you need convincing of that.
> 
> GPG with a large key length is probably as good as it gets outside of
> the unknowns above - and its free.
> <http://sourceforge.net/projects/macgpg>
> It includes symmetric and public/private key encryption which you can
> apply to your disc image file. Symmetric will be much quicker.
> 
> Also available in commercial versions as PGP etc.
> 
> Don't lose the key!!!
> 
> David
>