security chip and Linux crypted partitions

[Caterpillar]

Do you know if Linux uses the security chip of Thinkpads when you have a computer with encrypted partition? I think it will help the cpu.
Actually I am using a T60 with a Crucial SSD C300 64gb and Fedora 14 on a crypted partition.

[comps]

If the "security chip" you're reffering to is TPM, then please see http://trousers.sourceforge.net/faq.html#3.3 .

[ThinkRob]

Do you know if Linux uses the security chip of Thinkpads when you have a computer with encrypted partition? I think it will help the cpu.
Actually I am using a T60 with a Crucial SSD C300 64gb and Fedora 14 on a crypted partition.

No, it does not. And even if it could, it would not help performance. LUKS uses symmetric ciphers such as AES, Blowfish, etc. The TPM chip does public-key crypto, and slowly at that.

TPM can help you determine whether or not somebody's tampered with, say, your bootloader, but it's basically useless as a crypto offload device.

[Caterpillar]

TPM can help you determine whether or not somebody's tampered with, say, your bootloader

How can it do it?

[Harryc]

Moved to the Linux forum.