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New Year's Resolution: Full Disk Encryption on Every Computer You Own

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Re: New Year's Resolution: Full Disk Encryption on Every Computer You Own

#41

Post by 16s »

jrockway wrote: post #36
ck2 wrote: post #14

It's sad we need encryption mostly for protection from not criminals, but our own government for even trivial data. What freaks me out most these days is how easily people fall into the belief that "oh well traveling is not a right so you have to give up rights when you fly or drive anywhere". No, if you are a citizen of the United States and unless you are actually crossing a border, you should have the unqualified…

No, if you are a citizen of the United States and unless you are actually crossing a border, you should have the unqualified protection against unreasonable searches, especially without warrants. I agree. Practically speaking, the government can only search what you're physically carrying over the border. That means if you boot from something like a live CD and store all your data in the cloud, you're safe from searc…

I'm not sure the cloud is as difficult to access as you may think. Many cloud services have built-in law enforcement interfaces (LEI) to make searching the data self-service and easier for law enforcement as well as the cloud providers.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10446503-38.html

Re: New Year's Resolution: Full Disk Encryption on Every Computer You Own

#42

Post by hetman »

Jach wrote: post #29

If you go full disk encryption with TrueCrypt, make sure you look into their Hidden OS feature as well. A judge may be able to order you to give up the decryption key to the OS when accessing the drive prompts for one (last I checked the precedent is still somewhat shaky), because while they can't know what's being encrypted they can infer something readable is. They can't prove the existence of a Hidden OS, though,…

Might look odd if none of the files on the decoy have been modified in the last 6 months - logging in to do this regularly and in a believably meaningful way seems like a burden. The good news is unless you're an international crime lord, it seems unlikely there will be anyone on hand in the court to make this kind of leap (not a lawyer so that guess could be way off though).

Re: New Year's Resolution: Full Disk Encryption on Every Computer You Own

#43

Post by kia »

Microsoft BitLocker in its most secure mode is the gold standard because it protects against more attack modes than other software. Unfortunately, Microsoft has only made it available with certain versions of Microsoft Windows.

Though MS says that BitLocker doesn't have back doors [1], I wonder how true this actually is...

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/si_team/archive/2006/03/02/542590.as...

Re: New Year's Resolution: Full Disk Encryption on Every Computer You Own

#44

Post by po »

josscrowcroft wrote: post #37

Enlightening (and scary) stuff. Encryption is great but won't save you if they ask for your password (honestly, I'd prefer to give them the password and circumvent using online storage.) With that in mind - what advice would all you security buffs have on the best way to back up your hard drive to an online disk? Specifically using a basic hosting account as opposed to SAAS or cloud service?

I actually trust tarsnap more than setting up a host and having to maintain it:

http://www.tarsnap.com/

Re: New Year's Resolution: Full Disk Encryption on Every Computer You Own

#45

Post by icebraining »

goblin89 wrote: post #30
mike-cardwell wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I have always thought that the only reason you would need full disk encryption on a computer is if you was doing something illegal." Did you even read the article? It mentions several legitimate reasons why you would need to use encryption for perfectly legal reasons. It still surprises me hear people who are intelligent enough to use the Internet come out with the, "if you've nothing to hide" argument. EDIT: The in…

Not to argue with your points (business data is sensitive stuff), but another link from the article leads to this: > For maximum security make sure you are alone and close the curtains. Write on a hard surface - not on a pad of paper. After you memorize your passphrase, burn your notes, pulverize the ashes and flush them down the toilet. That is quite a paranoid's hell. =) Full-disk encryption may just provide false…

Full-disk encryption may just provide false sense of safety, as we store lots of data in the cloud, where even strong passwords do not guarantee that nobody will get access to the data.

You can store an encrypted file "in the cloud", though. A truecrypt volume with a keyfile should be essentially uncrackable. Of course, then you can only use the service as a dumb data storage.

Re: New Year's Resolution: Full Disk Encryption on Every Computer You Own

#46

Post by pmr_ »

icebraining wrote: post #38
flipbrad wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I don't see why national borders are so strongly part of the equation. I suppose that depends on your worldview. I live within the Schengen Area, and to me it seem patently obvious that most 'bad things' in the world are hardly affected by national borders. They're typically supra-national (climate change, credit crunch, cracking, etc) or intra-national (most crime, etc. I don't mean to argue for more c…

Drug trafficking and illegal immigration?

Without getting into an argument that is very far off the topic: Especially those two things are only made into problems. The first is easily solved by partial legalization and the second is just protectionism.

Re: New Year's Resolution: Full Disk Encryption on Every Computer You Own

#47

Post by josscrowcroft »

po wrote: post #44
josscrowcroft wrote: post #37

Enlightening (and scary) stuff. Encryption is great but won't save you if they ask for your password (honestly, I'd prefer to give them the password and circumvent using online storage.) With that in mind - what advice would all you security buffs have on the best way to back up your hard drive to an online disk? Specifically using a basic hosting account as opposed to SAAS or cloud service?

I actually trust tarsnap more than setting up a host and having to maintain it: http://www.tarsnap.com/

Looks very interesting, as services go. For this kind of thing, I'm strangely less inclined to trust a slick-looking, well-designed and heavily-marketed backup "solution"..

If I do fork out for a service, I would probably rather go with the kind of company that has as their tagline: "Online backups for the truly paranoid", like them.

Pricing's not a killer either.

Re: New Year's Resolution: Full Disk Encryption on Every Computer You Own

#48

Post by worldimperator »

Jach wrote: post #29

If you go full disk encryption with TrueCrypt, make sure you look into their Hidden OS feature as well. A judge may be able to order you to give up the decryption key to the OS when accessing the drive prompts for one (last I checked the precedent is still somewhat shaky), because while they can't know what's being encrypted they can infer something readable is. They can't prove the existence of a Hidden OS, though,…

And you can be happy if it's a judge and not some convincingly dark smiling guy with a mask.

Re: New Year's Resolution: Full Disk Encryption on Every Computer You Own

#49

Post by nonane »

tobiasbischoff wrote: post #8

On OSX with Lion - there is no excuse http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/10/filevault-2-benchmarks-disk-e...

Have you noticed crashes and general instability on OS X Lion + Filevault 2?

We've tried it on a Core2Duo Macbook Pro (early 2007) and MacBook (Mid 2010). We've seen lots of OS crashes (Macbook) and general performance issues when running XCode (Macbook Pro).

We're also running virtualization software on the Macs (Parallels and VMWare) - I'm not sure if they're interacting with Filevault 2 (shouldn't be).

Just wonder if anyone else has noticed this.

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