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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Is anyone here using their hardware TPM chips for credentials? (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm curious about the possible uses of the hardware Trusted Protection Module for automatic login or transfer encryption. I'm not really looking to solve anything or pry. I'm just curious about the use cases as I'm exploring network attached storage and to a lesser extent self hosting. I see a lot of places where public private keys are generated and wonder why I don't see people mention generating the public key from TPM where the private key is never accessible at all.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I use it for storing luks credentials, so every time I boot I get dropped at my login manager. It leaves my system vunerable to attacks to it, but its quite convenient.

Besides, if anyone tries to boot any other OS which is not mine, the keys are erased.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Can you explain a bit on how the key erasure works? AFAIK TPM only refuse to release the key when certain PCR dont match, is there a setting to let it erase key?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

https://fedoramagazine.org/automatically-decrypt-your-disk-using-tpm2/

I've read this article to make my setup, but its very informative about the function of TPM too

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I have read that article, it doesn't seem to mention that TPM will erase key if a different OS is loaded, maybe I missed something?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

It talsk about pcr, every time another OS is booted some pcsrs are changed, and if the keys are installed on the correct ones, this will lead to it being erased

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

Besides, if anyone tries to boot any other OS which is not mine, the keys are erased.

There are forensic tools that can capture the contents of RAM, and so access your decrypted LUKS encryption key.

I guess it depends on who you are protecting against, but if for example law enforcement wants evidence against you for what they think is a serious enough crime, they just may go through the trouble to do it.