Ubuntu installer kills LUKS partitions without warning

[Søren Bredlund Caspersen]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

From https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-bugsquad/2011-April/003176.html

The dm-crypt mailing list (archive here:
http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.device-mapper.dm-crypt)
has had several reports that the Ubuntu installer creates
new LUKS partitions (encrypted partitions) on top of exisiting
ones without giving adequate warning and at the same time
giving the impression that the existing LUKS partition would be
activated. The rather clear warning and verification question
asked by the cryptsetup tool seems to get disabled with the
"--batch-mode" option.

This causes irreversible loss of all data! Nothing
(in the cryptographically strong sense) can be done
to get the data back!

Checking for an existing LUKS partition is easy,
it has the magic string 'L','U','K','S, 0xBA, 0xBe
at the beginning. It seems this is not checked for,
or no additional warning or only inadequate additional
warning is given if a pre-exisiting LUKS partition
is about to be permanently and irretrivably erased.