[FDE] MultiCore Comparisons

[michael.jardine at usa.secude.com]

The future is that drive-based FDE will become a commodity, probably within the next 2-3 years.  All drives will likely have this capability.  The key (no pun!) is authentication and key management, which of course is software-based.  That is why we have teamed with Seagate.  

Regards
Michael Jardine

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-----Original Message-----

From:  dan at geer.org
Subj:  Re: [FDE] MultiCore Comparisons
Date:  Tue Jan 30, 2007 8:42 am
Size:  901 bytes
To:  fde at www.xml-dev.com


catchall at princesshouse.co.uk writes:
 | Dear Sirs,
 | 
 | The one major drawback that I can see all software based solutions is
 | the overhead on the CPU.
 | 


I've wondered that as well.  As I read the tea leaves,
the doubling time for CPU is, per Moore's Law, 18 months
but circa 12 months for disk.  Ipso facto, the ratio of
CPU to disk in a constant-dollar design regime must fall
at the rate of an order of magnitude per decade, or a
CAGR for the inverse ratio of disk/CPU of 26%/annum.
For the CPU side to keep up, either the fraction of total
retained data actually handled per unit time has to fall,
or the number and/or percentage of CPUs devoted to encryption
must rise.  I suspect this drives the encryption into the
disk enclosure quite inexorably.

--dan

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