It’s Always Sunny in Reykjavik or How I NSA-Proofed My Email (2013)

Re:It’s Always Sunny in Reykjavik or How I NSA-Proofed My Em... by tarnacious_ on Monday December 21, 2015 @01:20PM (#10772452)

Encrypting data on a VPS, for example using LUKS encrypted volumes, does not provide any meaningful security if the host can take a memory dump of the running machine.

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Re:It’s Always Sunny in Reykjavik or How I NSA-Proofed My Em... by Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd on Monday December 21, 2015 @01:53PM (#10772678)

And just to clarify: taking a memory dump of a virtual machine is trivial. Just click on the 'snapshot' button.

On a physical machine, you have to plug in a dumping device into a DMA-capable port, cool down the RAM and move it to another machine as fast as possible, or reset the machine and boot it from another medium (hoping the BIOS didn't override anything useful). In many jurisdictions you also have better protections in regards to required warrants and such for your own hardware.

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Re:It’s Always Sunny in Reykjavik or How I NSA-Proofed My Em... by nawtacawp on Monday December 21, 2015 @02:38PM (#10772932)

Excellent point. I highly doubt a VPS provider would volunteer a memory dump of a VM when presented with a search warrant for a copy of the VM. Most providers would likely just copy the VM files and call it a day.

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