Do you encrypt your folders or drives?

By Art_X
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Grand Master

+LogicalApex MVC

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I encrypt using BitLocker and a TPM. I should move to something more secure though.

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Grand Master

T3X4S

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I encrypt using BitLocker and a TPM. I should move to something more secure though.

Why ?

How is Bitlocker not enough ?  Or any other encryption ?

What on earth can someone possibly have ?  Are there people in your house who are expert hackers/crackers/math geniuses you trust so little ?

 

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Grand Master

T3X4S

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When I worked as a PC tech years ago , had some douchebag come in and say he needed "something better than 512-bit AES"

I asked why because, at that time, major e-retailers were only using 512-AES.

He said, "I have $60 miilion dollars in my laptop"  (it was some 20 year old douche)

I knew he wasnt going to be a customer and was just bored and thought he could impress someone - so I played along.

Come to find out, he had a list of sales leads that if you were to capitalize on all the leads it would amount to $60 million in sales"

He saw this as "I have $60 million" -
So my reply was, "What you are saying, is you need to be protected incase some hacker can crack 512 AES, and who also happens to be in your same industry and would be able to use those same contacts ??"

Needless to say he left -

There is paranoia, and there is clueless from watching too much TV

Apex - not saying this is you - I am simply saying people think the world is out to get them and 99/100 nobody cares because nobody has anything of real value to anyone else.

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Grand Master

+LogicalApex MVC

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Why ?

How is Bitlocker not enough ?  Or any other encryption ?

What on earth can someone possibly have ?  Are there people in your house who are expert hackers/crackers/math geniuses you trust so little ?

 

I am only storing personal documents, including financial and tax records, which demand encrypting my drives at all. BitLocker is more than secure enough for these needs, but BitLocker isn't considered the most secure form of drive encryption. Though what is driving my reason to move to something else is mainly my slow transition toward Linux more. So my workstations are using BitLocker while my servers need to use something else.

 

I am not naive enough to think that my data is important enough to warrant state actor level hackers seeking it out. So it isn't done for that sort of thing.

 

Primarily, I don't want a home burglary to result in my data accessible, easily, to a thief.

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Grand Master

Nagisan

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Using Truecrypt to encrypt a volume on my flash drive to store a backup of personal documents (nothing really that important, a few software licenses that require a license file, old school work, old work files, resumes, contacts, one-time use backup codes for my email account, and a couple hints to remind me of my passwords on obscure sites I don't log into often). For the password hints, each of them is due to limitations in the password requirements for those sites that forced me to deviate from my normal schema.

 

I store the same info unencrypted on my main backup drives (nothing in any of it could really do any damage if somebody else obtained the files), but for portable storage I would rather encrypt them so if I do drop it somewhere a vast majority of people would not be able to get that info.

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Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

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I don't see the point of encryption on a home pc..  There is nothing on there of real importance, the one thing would be the password db..  And that is encrypted.  Why should I encrypt my picture of me in the wife in paris, or videos I take of my grand kids..

 

So my digital copy of my tax return.. You mean the one that is paper copy in the file cabinet next to the computer?  And tax returns are public anyway.  So what should I be worried about - that my social is on there.  So someone broke into my house and has physical access.  So again that social in on the paper copy in my file cabinet and plenty of other docs in the house, etc.

 

edit:  In my many many years of experience in IT.  When it comes to encryption and users - they end up locking themselves out of their own files is normal outcome ;)  There have been many a thread on here were users enabled efs, did not backup their key as they are suppose to.  Next thing you know an icon is out of place and they reinstall windows and can not figure out why they can not get to the files on their data drive they encrypted with efs..  Because you know "security" ;)  And now all those files are GONE!!  You would think they could go to their backup, but again they are users.. 

 

So I used aes-256 on my zip file to store my private stuff..  But now can not remember the password = GONE!!

 

Sorry but encryption in the home is just starting a count down clock of unknown value to when the user will not be able to access the files..  Might be an hour, might be 2 weeks, might be a year - but seems most likely at some time in the near future when they actually need access they will have locked themselves out and then looking for how to break aes-256 ;)

 

edit2: "I don't want a home burglary to result in my data accessible, easily, to a thief."

 

So where is your backup of this data?  In the cloud?  Is it also encrypted on your external backup disk, tape, dvd, blueray?  What is your worried the thief will get access too?  Your resume, your recipe for chicken soup?  Your music collection?  What exactly would be on there that if someone broke into your home would not else where in the home to steal?  Only thing on mine that that I would be concerned with is my lastpass info..  But they have to know my password.. And can tell you first thing that would happen anyway if my PC was stolen is would change that just to be "sure"  I just really can not think what would be on there that would be of concern??

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  • 5 weeks later...
Experienced

th3rEsa

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I set up a paranoia machine (OpenBSD laptop, full-disk encryption, additionally encrypted folders for certain things) for use in foreign WiFi networks. On my day-to-day Windows machine I don't encrypt my documents. I'd assume there is close to no way to safely hide them from everyone.

LastPass and Cloudfogger are lovely additions to my workflow though.

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  • 1 month later...
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birdie

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If I had a laptop, I'd surely encrypt it.

 

As for my desktop - there's no need for. If CIA or any similar company decides they want my data, they can as well threaten me physically and get any decryption key from me.

 

On the other hand, if I suddenly perish, my relatives will be able at least to preserve my digital legacy. In case of encryption, my data would be lost forever.

 

 

-----------------------

Best Linux distro for the desktop in 2015

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Grand Master

astropheed Veteran

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I don't encrypt anything, I have literally nothing worthy of encryption on my PC. Maybe I'm old school but I don't put important information on my PC. It's much easier to break into my Computer, and get away with it, than it is to break into my house; in other words, I write things down.

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Grand Master

Haggis Veteran

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Nothing in my home has had a choice made to encrypt it

 

Important passwords are not saved in the browser and are in my head (i have something like a photographic memory  so easily remembered)

 

No docs etc on my home laptop that needs encrypted

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Psion7

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I encrypt my /home but not full disk encryption. Although I probably will do full disk when I never build a system as the performance impact now is less than 0.1% and as this is a laptop that I take all over the world it is nice to know if it does get lost/stolen then I don't need to worry about any work/personal finances/family pictures/etc. I don't have anything to hide but that doesn't mean I don't want to keep it private :)

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