Do you encrypt your PC in case it's stole.

I do wonder what people have stored on their PCs that's of such a sensitive nature? If people want a copy of my C.V and pictures of me at Longleat 3 years ago then they're welcome :p
 
Just my media drive and my external backup drives. My media drive its not very encrypted though, because the whole family uses it, so I have to let windows remember the password. So it would only be effected if the drive got connected in a different pc.
 
Am I still safe using Truecrypt to encrypt the recipe of the nuclear bomb I've been designing to detonate over a palace in an unnamed capital city in England?
 
Only pedos and spies encrypt their hdds, and anyone wanting to but too stupid to is an MP (usually trying to hide their expences / bribes) anyone with 2 levels of encryption is a pedos priest MP, spying for the Chinese government.

I keep my files in bit locker, on a true crypt partition, in an encrypted zip file, as attachments in a encrypted word document on my customers magnesium booby trapped ssd, in a safe... Under water...
 
this_is_gav said:
Am I still safe using Truecrypt to encrypt the recipe of the nuclear bomb I've been designing to detonate over a palace in an unnamed capital city in England?
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The theory is easy you can Google how to knock up a nuke the hard bit is getting the right bits, so you are wasting your time!
 
Iirc didn't i read somewhere 8.1 does it automatically and stores the key with your email account? That way the data is secure as long as one of those remains uncompromised.

I never bother doing it though, considered it once but decided against it as my keyboard doesnt work in windows pre-driver load screens (like the safe mode screen for example) so i was worried if i did i'd have to have a second keyboard just to enter the key....
 
adolf hamster said:
Iirc didn't i read somewhere 8.1 does it automatically and stores the key with your email account? That way the data is secure as long as one of those remains uncompromised.

I never bother doing it though, considered it once but decided against it as my keyboard doesnt work in windows pre-driver load screens (like the safe mode screen for example) so i was worried if i did i'd have to have a second keyboard just to enter the key....
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That's not how Bitlocker works if you have a TPM chip. Essentially it encrypts the hard-drive and then you store a recovery key on a USB stick, for example. There is no pre-boot authentication it just loads to Windows and you enter your password as usual. The difference is that if someone then tries to gain access to your PC with a password reset CD, for example, the drive will be encrypted. It also means the files can't be copied off your PC.

If you don't have a TPM chip then you can still set up Bitlocker but you would have the pre-boot authentication (a file on a USB stick or entering a password).



M.
 
Other than the pRon collection, no biggie if anything is lost.

Nothing important on the computer.

Anything of value is cloud based nowadays anyway.

The one thing which would be a pain in the butt would be having to change passwords for online services but the solution to that is to use a password manager or never cache passwords I guess however I cannot be *****.

I guess this is more relevant to Notebooks more so than desktops?

Notebooks can be lost or stolen, more difficult to "lose" a desktop I guess?
 
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I used to fully true crypt my drives when I was running a windows laptop along with locking down the boot menu and BIOS, but since moving to a mac there's nothing that will allow system level drive encryption that I'm aware of.
 
Bitlocker, have been using it for years. All drives are encrypted even externals. My netbook isn't but there's never anything of importance on it.

Found it quite annoying at first due to it triggering with any major hardware change but I've since got use to disabling it before doing any work on the PC. Think the TPM cost something like £6 for my motherboard so it was well worth it.

If it's stolen I know it'll be hard for them to get anything off it and all my data is backed up locally to an encrypted drive and on Crashplan.
 
m4cc45 said:
That's not how Bitlocker works if you have a TPM chip. Essentially it encrypts the hard-drive and then you store a recovery key on a USB stick, for example. There is no pre-boot authentication it just loads to Windows and you enter your password as usual. The difference is that if someone then tries to gain access to your PC with a password reset CD, for example, the drive will be encrypted. It also means the files can't be copied off your PC.

If you don't have a TPM chip then you can still set up Bitlocker but you would have the pre-boot authentication (a file on a USB stick or entering a password).



M.
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I dont see the use of a tpm chip, as if they steal the whole pc they'll have that too, and like i say for password authenticatiln i can't do because my keyboard won't work.
 
A word of warning on bitlocker using a USB - HAVE A BACKUP.

I recently lost my home server USB that was serving as my bitlocker key store, and without the recovery key stored anywhere, I lost both my main data array, and the backup data array, losing everything. You cannot restore files off a dead/dying HDD as easily, and if that's beyond you, forget sending it to a data recovery service.

So, best practice - have at least a second USB stored in a safe place, preferably labelled so it doesn't get used for anything else. You can copy the startup key to as many USBs as you like.
 
Yes, I encrypt literally everything I have that can be encrypted, external drives too.

FileVault2, TrueCrypt, DiskCryptor, EncFS, dm-crypt/luks I use/have used all of these, depending on what the system is (FileVault2 for OS X, TrueCrypt/DiskCryptor for Windows, dm-crypt/luks for Linux/BSD, etc)

I also don't store anything in the cloud unless the file is inside an encrypted container, in case of DropBox, I used to use BoxCryptor (basically a GUI wrapper for EncFS for Windows/OS X)

I do all this so I'm not worried about my data being accessed if my computers are lost or stolen, because everything is encrypted.

Tinfoil hat mode? Maybe, but if I have the option to protect my data, why shouldn't I do it?
 
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adolf hamster said:
I dont see the use of a tpm chip, as if they steal the whole pc they'll have that too, and like i say for password authenticatiln i can't do because my keyboard won't work.
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With the TPM, yes it would boot to the Windows login screen but they would need your Windows credentials to be able to access any data on the computer. Any attempt to circumvent the usual boot process would result in them needing to enter a recovery key ie. they wouldn't be able to boot a live CD in an attempt to access your data.

If you use a PIN in addition to this they wouldn't even get to the login screen.
 
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