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I recently acquired a new computer so I decided to try a few things, such as disk-encryption (fir the record, I installed Ubuntu 15.10, made only one partition, wiping everything that was here).

I ran across the problem that the random password I chose contains the letter A, and some other chars that aren't on the same place when we compare QWERTY and AZERTY keyboards.

So I started to wonder if it is possible to config the keyboard in AZERTY mode before having the prompt for disk-decryption, and this led me to think about where would this configuration be located? I mean, since I only have one partition, this have to be encrypted, therefore, I can't change the configuration. But, the decryption password has to be stored somewhere as well, even if it's hashed...

So my questions are:

  1. Where on the drive (assuming it's on the drive) are located the decryption password hash, the config file for the keyboard (if such thing is possible)
  2. This has to be on an unencrypted part of the drive, so it means that not the whole disk is encrypted, or did I get something wrong?
  3. To what extend data mentioned in question 1 can be retrieved and therefore help an attacker deduce my password? (because it seems legit that my password contains some letter that are on different places on QWERTY/AZERTY keyboards, as no one would bother switch modes if the decryption password doesn't contain such letters)
  4. What are the data that are accessible when drive is encrypted?

Thanks

Tloz
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  • Maybe you're overthinking this? Why not just change your password to what it would be on the other keyboard layout? Or just do the mapping and remember what your new password is using the other layout? (I used to switch between Qwerty and Dvorak depending on which Linux flavor was booted. You just need to know which one you're currently using. :D) – TTT Jan 17 '16 at 18:02
  • When I was aked the password, my layout was azerty and when I hit A, the letter sended was an A. But on the prompt to uncrypt, it wasn't the case. If I had been asked my password with a QWERTY layout, it wouldn't have been a problem, but this is not the case – Tloz Jan 17 '16 at 18:05
  • I mean, when you are prompted for the password with azerty, why don't you just type 'q' instead of 'a', and remap all the characters to figure out what your *mapped* password is? – TTT Jan 17 '16 at 18:19
  • I wasn't aware that when I'll have to prompt the password this will be in qwerty mode, the the whole install has been done this way. But first, there is nothing on the screen that indicates me that I'm in qwerty mode. Since everything I type in the prompt appears as a dot, I didn't have a clue to find out why I couldn't decrypt the disk (and therefore access the login screen). Took me a few minutes to figure out why. – Tloz Jan 17 '16 at 18:24

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