[Cryptography] Disk encryption

[Howard Chu]

Patrick Chkoreff wrote:
> On 3/27/23 1:23 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> 
>> I've never used disk encryption before, so I have some concerns.
>>
>> My understanding is that each encrypted block depends upon the previous
>> block (if not the entire chain), so what happens should an intermediate
>> block become corrupted?

Yeah, that's not how it works. Disk encryption is all page-based, as it must be.
Every page is encrypted independently, otherwise you cannot support random seeks to
arbitrary pages without reading and decrypting everything from block 0 onward, on
every access.
>>
>> I ask because I am now using an SSD drive (which I don't really trust),
>> but I was brought up on spinning rust for decades (no encryption).
> 
> 
> I on the other hand have used nothing but full disk encryption on SSDs for over a decade, and on spinning rust before that -- and I've never had a problem ...
> YET.  So I too would like to hear an answer on this one.

-- 
  -- Howard Chu
  CTO, Symas Corp.           http://www.symas.com
  Director, Highland Sun     http://highlandsun.com/hyc/
  Chief Architect, OpenLDAP  http://www.openldap.org/project/