[ale] little math

[Avery Ceo]

On 2/12/10, Jim Popovitch <jimpop at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 22:56, Brian Pitts <brian at polibyte.com> wrote:
>> >From the OP:
>>
>>> I'm just going by people recommendations in setting up a LUKS volume.
>>> They all agree to do the urandom data will produce a stronger means of
>>> encryption as opposed to all zeros, which is the last data pattern
>>> written in the badblocks utility.
>
> OK, the LUKS people make sense... but where does it say that repeating
> urandom data every so often is a security concern or that having 100%
> random data on the whole disk is a security enhancement?    Again, my
> whole point is that duplicity of random data is no less week than no
> having duplicity of random data.   The assumption that one will be
> able to tell the random data from real data hasn't been proven beyond
> assumption.
>
> -Jim P.
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I'm not sure where it says it, but where duplicity of random data is
significant is if you are trying to hide not just content of a data
file or partition, but also its very EXISTENCE.  The real need for
this is rare, but as with encryption in general, wider use provides
greater security for everyone - in this case, plausible deniability.

  A good explanation can be found at
http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=hidden-volume

Avery