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Ask HN: How do you encrypt your laptops?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you encrypt your laptops?

#31

- Bitlocker on my Windows 10 Pro laptop (because I'm more concerned about an everyday thief prying open my laptop than a government agent) - ChromeOS built-in encryption/LUKS FDE on the Fedora partition on my Chromebook I should probably encrypt my Android phone and tablet, but I had a bad experience with performance overhead when I encrypted my last phone.

I dont think it is even possible to hide it from government

Re: Ask HN: How do you encrypt your laptops?

#32
I don't have any files on my personal laptop.

I have a USB key or two on my key-ring, and in theory I have an external hard-drive although currently I don't use it.

I keep code on a VM and GitHub.

In general I don't really have anything I can't lose or have made public. Instead of looking at my laptop as a thing I have to protect I look at it as a thing that will inevitably be lost, damaged or replaced.

Re: Ask HN: How do you encrypt your laptops?

#33
post #29

I just use Truecrypt 7.1a, and encrypt the entire drive, so it requires a password before booting.

Does this affect performance? Esp for things like photoshop?

I don't use photoshop, nor can I offer anything other than my perception but I haven't noticed performance being reduced in any way.

Re: Ask HN: How do you encrypt your laptops?

#34
post #2

I use Mac OS X FileVault2, with a firmware password. It's incredibly easy to set up and should be good enough to protect my data from the majority of thieves. Coupled with encrypted Time Machine backups and Arq[0] I feel relatively ok about losing my machine. [0] https://www.arqbackup.com

Just so you're aware, the firmware password on a Mac can easily be bypassed by anyone with an SPI writer. [1] Using a teensy and a chip clip, someone can clear the password or bypass the password check completely.

So, it will keep the honest out, but for someone who knows what they're doing, it will only prove a mild inconvenience.

This obviously doesn't help them bypass FDE, but in case they want to steal the laptop and not have a brick, the SPI writer works a treat.

[1] https://trmm.net/SPI_flash

Re: Ask HN: How do you encrypt your laptops?

#35

- Bitlocker on my Windows 10 Pro laptop (because I'm more concerned about an everyday thief prying open my laptop than a government agent) - ChromeOS built-in encryption/LUKS FDE on the Fedora partition on my Chromebook I should probably encrypt my Android phone and tablet, but I had a bad experience with performance overhead when I encrypted my last phone.

Depending on which version of Android you're running, you may be pleasantly surprised. Manually encrypted an HTC One m9 (Lollipop) and found no noticeable performance decrement, and now with it enabled by default in Marshmallow it's unnoticeable.

Re: Ask HN: How do you encrypt your laptops?

#36

So, the dawn of SSDs has made hibernation and sleep redundant. I use FDE for my SSD (luks, and whatever good defaults ubuntu gives me). As for the cloud, I store nothing sensitive on there. I used truecrypt, but now I find VeraCrypt easier to use and install. I lost my last installer of truecrypt, and I don't trust the ones floating around. VeraCrypt hasn't been audited yet. This is a bad thing :)

I have been looking for any sort of software review of VeraCrypt or suggestions by security experts that they use and recommend VeraCrypt. I want something more than unknown people in forums saying they use it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you encrypt your laptops?

#37
I run Bitlocker on my Windows 10 machine it causes some issues with multibooting.

Does anyone have a good multiboot disk encryption setup?

On Linux I sometime use LUKS disk encryption. For adhoc disk container file disk encryption I use Veracrypt which is the successor of Truecrypt.

Re: Ask HN: How do you encrypt your laptops?

#38
post #25
post #17

I use the standard hardware encryption of my SSD (a Samsung 830 in my 2012-era Dell XPS 13), which requires I enter the passphrase when I turn my machine on. Advantages: - OS neutral - Seemingly as fast as running 'unencrypted' (I assume performance is identical, the only difference being the passphrase is stored in my head rather than the BIOS) Disadvantages: - Limited to an 8-char (!) ASCII passphrase - I've no ide…

That sounds like an annoyance, not encryption to me.

It reminds me of how I set a boot password in the BIOS on my HP laptop. I now have forgot the admin password in order to remove that "feature". I have no idea how I can fix it. The laptop is bricked. I can't install Linux on it because it is set not to boot from USB or CD/ROM

Re: Ask HN: How do you encrypt your laptops?

#39
post #9

I'm running Debian, so I have LUKS full-disk encryption running; I consider it a sine qua non of running a personal computer. I wish it were a bit easier to enable per-user encrypted home directories as well (yes, layered: CPUs are fast, and security is worth the cost), but … I'm lazy.

For others:

    Sine qua non is an indispensable and essential action, condition, or ingredient. It was originally a Latin legal term for "[a condition] without which it could not be", or "but for..." or "without which [there is] nothing".
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