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

teaboy5 · 9 Sep 2015 at 00:34

I am moving house soon and it just popped into my head that I don't really encrypt my main PC (each laptop each) in case the house is broken into and it's stole.

Not sure how encrypting the SSD would affect performance on games etc.

Does anyone encrypt their main PC?

coupe69 · 9 Sep 2015 at 00:45

Rensin · 9 Sep 2015 at 02:20

Nope,

All important files are encrypted and stored away from pc and online. Only keep photoshop files & games on my pc.

martin363 · 9 Sep 2015 at 05:46

I do, Main and Laptop, Bitlocker.

It seems to have no discernable impact on performance at all.

Martin

NoNameNoNumber · 9 Sep 2015 at 06:15

I've often thought this... Is bitlocker the one to go for? I have heard of that. How does it work? I guess you have to log in on startup?

Smit · 9 Sep 2015 at 08:08

Nope, don't have anything on it that would be useful to anyone if it was stolen.

Cosimo · 9 Sep 2015 at 08:16

No. I don't keep anything of importance on it.

gradyhawks · 9 Sep 2015 at 08:21

nope... nothing on it worth taking!

m4cc45 · 9 Sep 2015 at 08:42

NoNameNoNumber said:
I've often thought this... Is bitlocker the one to go for? I have heard of that. How does it work? I guess you have to log in on startup?

It encrypts the disk. There are various ways to configure it depending on if you have a TPM chip or not. You also need Windows Professional or above to use it.

Essentially you can have it completely transparent. It's only when someone then tries to use a password reset disk (hence why it's really important to have a windows password) they can't read the hard-drive. They also can't read it to copy files of it.

Yes it can still be wiped, etc. but at least your data will be safe.

M.

Glanza · 9 Sep 2015 at 09:17

Nope, my PC isn't something someone could just put under their own and run with.

aardvark · 9 Sep 2015 at 09:35

nope - got backups of anything important and any financial files i encrypt manually.

bledd · 9 Sep 2015 at 09:55

teaboy5 · 9 Sep 2015 at 10:39

The only folder that would worry me is the dropbox one, but I guess I can look into just encrypting that.

CaptainCrash · 9 Sep 2015 at 14:58

Yes, I use Bitlocker - there's confidential work/financial stuff on my laptop, and security is a must. Encrypting the whole disk is far simpler and more convenient than faffing around encrypting/decrypting files individually, and I can also be sure I haven't missed anything and there's no decrypted data lingering around in the temp folders, swapfile, slack space or wherever.

There's always the lingering suspicion of government-accessible backdoors with Bitlocker, but the way I look at it, if the three-letter-agencies really want to see my stuff they'll get it one way or another anyway. Bitlocker is fine for protection against casual theft, which is all I need it for really.

KIA · 9 Sep 2015 at 17:36

martin363 said:
I do, Main and Laptop, Bitlocker.

It seems to have no discernable impact on performance at all.

This.

anything I don't mind · 9 Sep 2015 at 17:44

I create some encrypted volumes and store some private files in them. Using truecrypt.

ste-sim2x9 · 9 Sep 2015 at 21:15

Until today i never thought about encryption or what would happen if my laptop was stolen until i checked out this thread. I have a lot of sensitive files on my laptop, just started to setup bitlocker.

Doug73458 · 9 Sep 2015 at 21:16

ste-sim2x9 said:
Until today i never thought about encryption or what would happen if my laptop was stolen until i checked out this thread. I have a lot of sensitive files on my laptop, just started to setup bitlocker.

+1

But today is the day that I change this, well maybe tomorrow lol

davisdavid · 10 Sep 2015 at 11:29

If someone managed to move my main I'd be impressed before I was gutted I think. I'll probably look into bitlocker tonight though for laptop.

linktoinsanity · 10 Sep 2015 at 17:03

bledd. said:
n.

I thought someone had stolen the n. It was you.

And "No."