On Sat, May 13, 2006 at 07:02:11PM +0100, Richard Brooklyn wrote:
Exactly how secure is this? Let's say I can use either OpenSUSE 10.1 or Ubuntu Dapper .. Say someone steals my laptop. Is it possible they will ever get hold of my data (ie. decrypt it)? Should I be encrypting more than just /home? (I was thinking about /tmp -- but I don't want to keep entering in loads of passphrases on every boot). Is it possible to encrypt / at all? That would be very handy, then it's just one passphrase, and I know that everything is secure, but I know I can expect a performance hit with this (which is not important).
Does your laptop not have ide disk password support?, this can effectively lock an ide disk until you supply the correct password.
From what I've read this means the only way to get the data off would be
take the disk to a data recovery expert or certain government departments that may or may not exist ;)
Anyone trying to boot one of the laptops here will end up with a screen with my email address and phone number and be asked for a password, if they can't unlock the disk I guess they can throw it in the bin and replace it, but of course i've also got passwords on the bios of the laptop so they'd have to dismantle the laptop to reset the bios passwords there too. All designed to annoy people who might want my laptop and to increase the chances i might see it again (and at least the data is /reasonably/ safe) Of course, there might be other traps on this kit too ;)
Thanks Adam