Topic: Whole HD Encryption

[kermi3]

If I get a new laptop...it will mostly be for work...and since I work with LOTS of confidential stuff on my personal machine - I'm considering whole HD encryption.  Anyone have any experience with this or thoughts on it?  Especially with an SSD and a Lenovo....

[Steve]

I always do it. For me since I use Linux it is as easy as using the encrypted install option. I forget what I used on Windows.

[ober]

All of our HDs at work are now encrypted.  It takes a while to do it initially but I notice no difference afterwards.  I'm running a normal HD but most of the other devs are running SSDs and they're all encrypted.

[Steve]

I have never noticed a single difference in performance between encrypted and standard. Like obes said it takes considerably longer to do initially.

[kermi3]

Thanks Obes.  What are you using to encrypt?

[Steve]

Oh and I did not realize that Ashley's Netbook is SSD. Hers is running Fedora as a primary OS, and Win7 as a secondary. Fedora did a full hard drive encryption which covers Windows as well. In her case the Netbook performs very well in both OS's. Figured I would chime that in since you asked about SSD.

[ober]

Thanks Obes.  What are you using to encrypt?

We're using BitLocker.

[KnuckleBuckett]

Butlolcker has a great rep.

Truecrypt also has long had decent reviews.

[hans]

I generally don't encrypt my entire drive. I use Truecrypt volumes for things I want secured. You need to be a little bit more vigilant making sure you don't leave things out in the open (unencrypted area). I also run Ubuntu so full disk encryption isn't hard at all.

[Steve]

Truecrypt, that is what I used back when I ran windows.

[KnuckleBuckett]

Truecrypt, that is what I used back when I ran windows.

Can you encrypt a single folder?

[Steve]

To the best of my recollection you can encrypt folders, partitions, whole drives, and external media.

[kermi3]

Hmmm - Partition might actually work perfectly if I can do it on Windows....Don't need much, a gig or 2....but I don't want to deal with it being a folder...and I don't want to have to worry about confidential shit if I get mugged....

[Steve]

Keep in mind only that partition is secure. If you work with a file outside that partition even once it is no longer secure. In other words if you have a word doc on the secure partition and office is installed on an unsecure partition you better have all of offices working direcyories encrypted as well. It is best to just encrypt any partition that holds an OS or the entire drive. There really is no reason not to do full drive encryption. Anything less is open to compromise.

Remeber this, even DoD 7 pass encryption (there may be a new standard these days) can be broken given enough time. The larger the volume the harder it is to break and the longer it will take. So if you encrypt 250gigs it is far more secure then 1 or 2 gigs.

[Rob]

Remeber this, even DoD 7 pass encryption (there may be a new standard these days) can be broken given enough time.

DoD 7 pass refers to disk wiping, NOT encryption.