To Encrypt or Not To Encrypt?
I’ve always been a big fan of encryption ever since I discovered PGP in the early nineties while at university. Of course, before that there was the secrey spy stuff I got by collecting the top flaps of Rice Crispies boxes. But ya, in a world where you never know who’s watching or snooping, I always thought of encryption as a good way to go. Plus there was the geek factor.
But my attempts to go almost completely encrypted thus far have thwarted. This is mostly due to a lack of awareness and a lack of technical knowhow on the part of your average Windows/Outlook user. But given that there’s an article on Wired about one persons lack of encrypting, it might not be long before more and more people realize the importance of encryption. One can only hope at least.
Of course, time is almost always another big factor. I recently discovered that it’s relatively easy to set up an encrypted hard drive partition under Linux (at least using Gentoo). So I set up my swap drive to be encrypted. Perfect. And I created a non-system partition which will be encrypted so all my personal and work files on my laptop will be secure. Have I done that yet? Nope, been too busy. Crap; hope my laptop doesn’t get stolen.
Mon, 11 Apr 2005 20:32 Posted in Technology
