Use of encryption on personal pcs

My computers have PONTOONS! :wink: Comically if your house got F'dUP in a hurricane or something, washed away in a flood yada yada the hard drive would be the one thing most likely to be fired up still heh.

I hauled a State-owned Compaq laptop, heavier than hell, supposedly ruggedized, around in a backpack for most of a year, over hill and dale in SE Alaska working for DOT in places where there were no roads. You took a floatplane or skiff to get there. Mostly on small islands around larger Prince of Wales Island. Back in the mid/late '90s. I never did fire it up. Had too much other stuff going on, like making camp. And keeping an eye out for bears. I was new to Alaska but I'd been spooked a time or two already. There's a special feeling you get when you realize the boot you're wearing fits inside of the paw print you just stepped in, along the trail you're trudging. The only trail.

Anyway I'm not even sure why I'd brought that laptop--probably because I could because it was cool to be issued one. When I turned it back in to the IT dept. they couldn't get it to do anything. At all. It was bricked. I was kind of pissed but kind of not. It would have been nice to have it work, should I have ever wanted it to.

I've never taken a laptop with me anywhere since then. Not even a tablet. It feels like I'm still getting even. Laptops back then were heavy, heavy. :wink:

Ergo, I do not use encryption.

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Translation:
Those commie bastard bears were a serious threat to national security so we had to both encrypt the drives and make the machines heavy as sin as to slow a would be intelligence gathering r0x b0x h4xx0ring bastard of a bear down should they attempt a get away with one of those machines!

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It will be pretty fried at that point of time :rofl:

Damm, this blew up

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Damn, now i want to encrypt my laptop. I am gonna suppose no way to do it without re install?

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Mmmm.

I’ve no experience on this, but you could consider software which encrypts / decrypts on-the-fly (by-the-way, there is also a nice section on the “why” to do it, to go back to the initial question):
Data-at-rest encryption - ArchWiki?
But then for Full-disk encryption (FDE), see dm-crypt/Encrypting an entire system.
And here, if you search a little bit also on the internet, you’ll see that almost everybody is discouraging the possibility to encrypt after installation, moving your data back and forth or chrooting and doing whatever. They always say that reinstalling is faster and more secure…

I find myself now sitting at the cuspssssss...thssssss.. of ...'should I' ...or ...'nope!' I finally got around to fully bringing my laptop into Garuda-land (it was a Frankenstein of EnOS + Garuda repos.) I have encrypted it in the past, but it was always a pain with two logins, but I do travel and that puts me in the 'I should' department.

Here is the question, because I have only ever encrypted with ext4/timeshift, how is using btrfs/snapper with restores and encryption?

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Kind of humorous that so many imagine themselves a "James Bond" look a like with nefarious villains constantly after all their secrets.

Encryption is not the key, good computing practices is of paramount importance. Most people suffer identity theft because they fall victum to easily avoidable schemes online. Don't open emails from unknown sources, don't go to sketchy porn, movie, or warez sites and you're 99% covered.

The only ones who truly need full disk encryption IMO are those who regularly travel in their daily business life with a laptop. All other use cases are not realistically in need of full disk encryption. You should never store your passwords to financial sites in your browser. As long as you don't make this mistake the possibility of being defrauded if your laptop is lost/stolen is slight IMO. If you do have sensitive data on your device, individual data can be encrypted if it is important to be kept private.

You can't fix stupid, most people suffer identity theft because of their own poor online habits (not because of a physical hardware theft).

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Base off your first sentence we shouldn't bother with passwords for our user accounts either :stuck_out_tongue: You don't have to be James Bond to be a target these days, from Advertisers to worms you're always a target and with crime anyone anywhere anytime can be a target just because someone sees an opportunity sitting on the other side of that window. :wink:

Just use ecryptfs and do your Private dir in your home. Then move all your ssh keys, scripts, browser prefs (if you store passwords) in there and symlink or bind them back to their default locations and ensure Private it decrypted and mounted on login. This is what I do because my mobile machines are either ancient platter drives or like first gen damn near experimental Intel SSD's.

If you have a big enough drive for backups (and you should ;)) just do a fast copy of your drive there and redo the machine whole if you want full disk encryption. Just be aware the full disk encryption might make things nasty slow if you're on an older platter drive.

IMO unless you are using a laptop, the odds of having your computer stolen is negligible. The average home computers are mostly a dime a dozen and hardly a big target for theft IMO. A laptop is a different story as I already stated and requires more precautions be taken.

Obviously everyone should use strong passwords to protect their user accounts, but preferably never store the passwords in your browser on a portable device. I really have a hard time believing desktop computers in a home are at great risk. If they are, you should probably think about moving to a safer neighborhood or associating with a more trustworthy group of friends and acquaintances.

I'll give you laptops are more likely to be part of a snatch and grab but the idea of desktops being stolen as negligible sounds like you've not lived in enough bad neighborhoods. I've seen homes gutted. Couch, chairs, stereos, kids toys. People are out here stealing GD pets!

This comes back to everyones reality is different. This is why I get mad when people say "No one needs a gun." OK So you be a woman who works closing at a seedy bar in a terrible neighborhood and walk alone to your car every night and see how things go. :wink: That womans reality calls for a hand gun, or SOMETHING. Where as the idiot in a gated community saying "No one needs a gun (except my guard detail)" have no clue about how their reality and situation doesn't extend past them.

And sure we're not all James Bond and I'm not saying EVERYONE MUST Encrypt, just depending on your living circumstances you SHOULD. I've seen more than a few people with roommates. Roommates with poor judge of character who bring others over...who then proceed to steal your computer, TV, Stereo...One dude got busted walking out the door trying to "barrow" a friends N64 back in the day heh.

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That was like, my entire reason for switching to Linux. Virus are made for Windows.

NFL. . . I mean, that’s really the biggest reason. Fremium sports.

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Hopefully no hair of the dog today ;p

Warez sites, talk about a flash back.

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Oh ya, I forgot to mention another big no no for those dual booting Windows. When you’ve downloaded a movie that won’t play because it says it’s lacking the proper codec, whatever you do don’t open the thoughtfully included codec.exe file.

Lol you guys shut up your making me nostalgic. My lord the service calls that came about from "movies" where someone installed the "codec pack." Then I'd have to explain how avitvirus was BS and the fact it allowed you to install this virus I'm here removing is proof...and how many times has this happened this year Tony? What six, seven times? I'd tell you to get a girlfriend Tony but I can afford a chocolate bars as long as you keep this stupidity up :wink:

On top of those codec packs don't forget all the flat out fake apps. So where did you download VLC from again? totallylegitVLCforsurebro dot com

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Because it’s that simple. People just choose to live in dangerous, poverty stricken areas. They should just get a job on Wall St. and live on the upper east side.

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@tgb
"If they are, you should probably think about moving to a safer neighborhood"

I'm sure people think about it all the time, reality doesn't give a chit what you think about or work towards. I've had many friends who lived in slums because it was the only way they could afford an education and the tools i.e. a computer/car/books to make it out of that slum. Some lived in dorms and you don't get to choose the "class of person" your roommate is. Fast forward some made it, some didn't. I had a friend who has his Ph.D in physics who drives a flipping coffee catering van for a crappy place that does coffee and condiments for offices because there is no work for him here or anywhere in country.

I'd hope your statement was sarcastic but too often people say things like that and mean it. You might as well say Water should stop being wet. Why is it on every to move "somewhere better" rather than the onus being put on the thieves, governments and corporations to just not be evil and constantly try to steal, spy, manipulate? Yeah it's totally the victims fault for not affording to live in Fort Knox and not the fault of the criminals we need to secure and encrypt against. It's our fault bad people we have nothing to do with do bad things...totally. ;p

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Hopefully I can slip this in, without dragging us further off-topic.
Reminds me of the "If climate change is real and the sea level rises, the people living on the coast can just move inland, it's not difficult" ... because obviously, the price of a residence that'll soon be underwater and in the middle of a collapsing community will go for an equal price as one inland that's stable and it'll be a cinch to get a replacement job there too, for themselves, their local family members.
Super easy, barely an inconvenience!

Sadly that's not off topic. Even the gun debate is this very same array of issues. You can basically take a lot of these sentiments and statements and replace gun, climate, poverty, hard drive, computer and nothing changes other than the direct subject. The concepts and social implications are all identical.