Something for Mobile Computer Owners

[andruoid]

I'm not paranoid. I just like being as safe as possible with my personal data. Now that I have a laptop that is 'more exposed' to the outside world I have to be extra careful. Most laptops come with 7 Home Premium which by default has no way of encrypting the entire drive, partitions, folders or even singles files. Sometimes the laptop may come with MyWinLocker but its very limited; a maximum 50GB virtual drive is made to dump folders/files into. 7 Professional can encrypt folder and files, 7 Ultimate can encrypt the entire drive with Bitlocker. So, is a Home Premium owner left without this type of security (if they want/need it)? Nope.

After a Google and reading reviews on paid and free encrypting software one has had nothing but excellent reviews and comments. The software is called TrueCrypt its free and open-source disk encryption software (donations accepted). It can encrypt specific partitions, system partitions or the entire drive. Encryption levels vary from AES, Serpent, Twofish and cascading (combining) combinations of 2 or 3. There are many more options and details i still have yet to explore so if you are interested there is more info on their website: TrueCrypt - Free Open-Source On-The-Fly Disk Encryption Software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X and Linux

 

[spymaxx]

Been using TrueCrypt for a while and love it. One great feature is you can encryt an entire USB drive.

 

[andruoid]

I'm encrypting the entire drive in my laptop and right now I'm at 20%, 17 hours to go. That's using a 7 pass wipe mode, 35 pass would take 5 days solid!

 

[mplevy]

I use TC, primarily to encrypt my financial data. I use Roboform for passwords, which stores passwords in a proprietary password-protected file, the rest of my "sensitive" data goes in my financial TC container. The rest of the stuff on my laptop can't hurt me if it gets out.

 

[andruoid]

Just finished the encryption about an hour ago, which took 23hrs total for a 5,400rpm 500GB laptop drive (Also depends on the speed of the system and level of encryption, etc.) Rebooted, entered key-phrase which has to be 20 to 64 characters long and thankfully all went well

 

[SUroot]

Who validates source commits if it's open source?

I wouldn't trust anything open source to encrypt or secure anything personally. The code is available for all to see. If an exploit was found, your trust relies soley on the source owner's ability to identify security holes and keep them plugged.

 

[alostpacket]

Who validates source commits if it's open source?

I wouldn't trust anything open source to encrypt or secure anything personally. The code is available for all to see. If an exploit was found, your trust relies soley on the source owner's ability to identify security holes and keep them plugged.

Sorry, I really dont mean to sound rude or anything, but this is very incorrect.

Most modern cryptography is based on open source process.

Advanced Encryption Standard process - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[SUroot]

Sorry, I really dont mean to sound rude or anything, but this is very incorrect.

Most modern cryptography is based on open source process.

Advanced Encryption Standard process - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thats fine, I don't see it as rude. Its a discussion

I'm not sure about it mostly being open sourced, so thanks for the link.

I work within an enterprise environment, so my perspective may be a little different. I just don't trust anything that others can see the code for because as far as I am concerned, this allows people to find and exploit security holes. Obviously this type of thing would take huge talent but I see it as possible.

I suppose as I work in an enterprise environment where data security is paramount, I could never look at anything other than Pointsec FDE.

It may sound like I am an untrusting fool, but I am

 

[alostpacket]

Thats fine, I don't see it as rude. Its a discussion

I'm not sure about it mostly being open sourced, so thanks for the link.

I work within an enterprise environment, so my perspective may be a little different. I just don't trust anything that others can see the code for because as far as I am concerned, this allows people to find and exploit security holes. Obviously this type of thing would take huge talent but I see it as possible.

I suppose as I work in an enterprise environment where data security is paramount, I could never look at anything other than Pointsec FDE.

It may sound like I am an untrusting fool, but I am

Oh I'm an untrusting ol' fool myself The skepticism runs deep with us techy types.

Healthy skepticism is good too, especially with security. But at some point things have to be "good enough" I think. And I also think that argument can be turned around to say it dangerous to trust those few people behind closed source to be the gatekeepers.

A lot of the big open source project I know about have more than one person with commit priviledges for the code patches. It's basically why Git and other DCVS were invented They wanted a more robust way to work together with distributed oversight of the patches. This is actually one of the main driving forces behind the open source movement: more eyballs = more fixes = more security and stability.

Anyways I got to run but cheers for the nice reply

 

[SUroot]

And I also think that argument can be turned around to say it dangerous to trust those few people behind closed source to be the gatekeepers.

Now that you have said that, I agree there. Touche

I think the key must be research, research, research. Research the companies behind the source and make an informed decision.

 

[alostpacket]

OK all that said, here's what it looks like when commits go hilariously wrong


https://github.com/MrMEEE/bumblebee/commit/a047be85247755cdbe0acce6f1dafc8beb84f2ac


Thought you might get a chuckle out of this, definitely read the comments.

 

[SUroot]

Hahaha Wicked.

I just re-used this in my office as it seemed appropriate

 

[karandpr]

An off topic encryption gag

 

[andruoid]

In another post I mentioned I bought a new HDD. The stock Hitachi that I replaced is fully encrypted with TrueCrypt. I thought I'd see what happens by putting it in a USB enclosure and connect it just to see if anything is visible. I plugged it in and nothing; the USB bridge told me there was a Hitachi device connected however, the drive didn't show up at all in My Computer. +1 ;-)