Reply-To: "Robert Wann" <rwann@enovatech.com> From: "Robert Wann" <rwann@enovatech.com> To: <bill.stewart@pobox.com> Cc: <declan@well.com>, <shields@msrl.com>, "Andy Newman" <anewman@enovatech.com> Subject: Re: Encrypted hard drive enclosure for $139 Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 02:02:59 -0700 Organization: Enovatech, Inc.

Hi Bill,

Sorry about the intrusion. This is Rober with Enova Technology, the original designer of the X-Wall real-time hard disk encryption chipsets. I read your comments with interests and would like to exchange couples thoughts with you regarding the technology/product we have implemented. I appreciate your further comments. My comment follows your message.

At 06:14 PM 02/01/2003 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote:

<http://fwdepot.com/thestore/product_info.php?products_id=331>http://fwdepot.com/thestore/product_info.php?products_id=331

http://www.deltrontech.com/Enclosure/E3S/E3S.htm

Interesting, but I'm confused about the

"Real-time 64-bit/ 40-bit DES (Data Encryption Standard)

Encryption/ Decryption with throughput of 712Mbit/ sec"

Yeah. And the web page claims it's "military-grade" security. It's like, if you know enough to build such a thing, why don't you know enough to use real encryption? Somebody on Slashdot recommended this for Schneier's doghouse list.

Now, 712 Mbit/sec is about 90 MByte/sec, which means if it were doing 3DES, it'd probably be about 30 MByte/sec, which is no longer fast enough to be entertaining.

**Enova's response**The 712Mbit/sec is our first generation disk encryption chipset X-Wall SE-40NB and SE-64NB which offers DES 40bit and 64-bit strength respectively. The second generation X-Wall SE A version offers 1.1Gbit/sec on both DES and TDES level. The TDES engine offers the same throughput as that of DES engine as we have engineered the pipeline design such that performance isn't degraded on TDES. The only difference is the start up latency. The start up latency for X-Wall SE-64A is 90 nano second and for X-Wall SE-128A is 270 nano second.

Please refer to our website <http://www.enovatech.com>http://www.enovatech.com for more information.

Thanks, Robert