Encrypted filesystems

Jerry Feldman gerald.feldman at hp.com
Mon Apr 25 14:04:45 EDT 2005


On Monday 25 April 2005 1:45 pm, Kent Borg wrote:
> That does bring up another reason for encrypting data: To maybe make
> it possible to do warranty returns on dead disks that were used to
> store sensitive data.
There should be a certain amount of trust involved. A vendor _SHOULD_ either 
destroy the platters or bulk erase them. I would doubt that a vendor would 
take the time to extract the data as data recovery is labor intensive. 

> And you make a good point: Neither encrypted data nor keys have to be
> military quality to be useful.  No more than the locks on my house
> have to be Fort Knox-quality to be useful.
This is very true. The level of encryption depends on the value of the data 
to you or someone else. 
If I were a company executive carrying a laptop, I would certainly make sure 
the data including email was encrypted. But, the bottom line is the value 
of the data. I don't encrypt anything on my laptop because the only things 
I keep on it is stuff for my teaching. 
-- 
Jerry Feldman <gerald.feldman at hp.com>
Partner Technology Access Center (contractor) (PTAC-MA)
Hewlett-Packard Co.
550 King Street LKG2a-X2
Littleton, Ma. 01460
 (978)506-5243



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