this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2025
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I was recently intrigued to learn that only half of the respondents to a survey said that they used disk encryption. Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows have been increasingly using encryption by default. On the other hand, while most Linux installers I've encountered include the option to encrypt, it is not selected by default.

Whether it's a test bench, beater laptop, NAS, or daily driver, I encrypt for peace of mind. Whatever I end up doing on my machines, I can be pretty confident my data won't end up in the wrong hands if the drive is stolen or lost and can be erased by simply overwriting the LUKS header. Recovering from an unbootable state or copying files out from an encrypted boot drive only takes a couple more commands compared to an unencrypted setup.

But that's just me and I'm curious to hear what other reasons to encrypt or not to encrypt are out there.

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[–] Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I used to, but it's proven to be a pain more often than a blessing. I'm also of the opinion that if a bad actor capable of navigating the linux file system and getting my information from it has physical access to my disk, it's game over anyway.

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[–] Mwa@lemm.ee 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I don't wanna risk losing anything on the drive thats important .

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

May i suggest a technique for remembering the password?

write it down

but instead of writing down the password, write down questions that only you can reasonably answer. For example:

  • what was the name of the first girl i kissed?
  • where did i go to on summer camp?
  • which special event happened there?

and the answer would be: "mary beach rodeo" or idk what. this way, you construct a password out of multiple words that each are an answer to a simple question.

[–] Mwa@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago

Maybe I might try this, and am open to advice :)

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[–] Quazatron@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That is a good reason to backup, but has nothing to do with encryption.

[–] EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

That is a good reason to backup

This is true.

but has nothing to do with encryption.

I disagree with this. If you forget the password for decrypting your drive, then you will have lost "anything on the drive that's important". I know because it happened to me long ago, and so now I too have been wary of disk encryption ever since then.

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[–] Mwa@lemm.ee 5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I meant if I lose my encryption key I lose the data on the disk.

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[–] hubobes@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 week ago

My Laptop and Phone have encrypted drives, my Desktop doesn't.

[–] ReakDuck@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Its that simple.

I can expand my own creativity and store every thought and creative Art, without anybody being able to find out after my death or while someone raids me.

Maybe I stored an opinion against some president, and maybe the government changed its working, which allows police to raid someone for little suspection.

You never know if you ever have something to hide. While things are okay now and today, it might be highly illegal tomorrow.

Those are ideas. But generally its only about the feeling of privacy.

[–] BioMyth@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago (5 children)

I don't for a pretty simple reason. I have a wife, if something ever happened to me then she could end up a creek without a paddle. So by not having it encrypted then, anyone kinda technical can just pull data off the drive.

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[–] cow@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Almost everything that can be is: laptops, desktop, servers (LUKS), phone (grapheneos)

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago

It's one of those things where it depends on the computer. My old box that's running win 7 has nothing but music and backed up media files on it, isn't connected to the internet at all, and there's really no point to it being encrypted.

My laptop leaves the house, and is connected, so it gets the treatment. My general purpose PC is, though that was more just because of a random choice rather than a carefully chosen decision. I figured I'd try it for a few weeks, then nuke it if it was a problem. It hasn't been, and I haven't needed to do anything to it that would require a change.

The other people in the house have chosen not to.

I'm not certain I would encrypt my main desktop again, just because it's one more thing to do, and I'm getting lazy lol. I don't have any sensitive files at all, and if things in the world get so bad that some agency is after me, I'm going to be hiding out up in this holler I know, not worrying about leaving a computer behind. Won't be power anyway, and the only shit they'd find is some pirated files.

I'd be more worried about my phone and my main tablet than any of the PCs, and those would either go with me, or get melted down before I left. Thermite is cheap and easy.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I have stopped encrypting my drives, because if anything goes wrong and the system won't boot it makes recovery more difficult. It's a dual boot machine with Windows 11, and I had a lot of awkwardness with Bitlocker that led to me deciding to abandon encryption in both OSs. I save sensitive files to encrypted volumes in VeraCrypt.

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[–] patatahooligan@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

I encrypt all my filesystems, boot partitions excluded. I started with my work laptop. It made the most sense because there is a real possibility that it gets lost or stolen at some point. But once I learned how simple encryption is, I just started doing it everywhere. It's probably not gonna come into play ever for my desktop, but it also doesn't really cost me anything to be extra safe.

[–] dbkblk@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I use encryption on laptops, because they can be stolen in the train, bus, etc. On work desktop, I do so as well, because there are many people around. However, on everything that stay at home, I prefer not to use it to simplifiy things and get more performance.

[–] ShortN0te@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago

Full disk encryption on everything. My Servers, PCs etc. Gives me peace of mind that my data is safe even when the device is no longer in my control.

[–] BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I encrypted my professional laptop's drive in order to prevent access to company data and code in case of theft. And I'll probably encrypt my personal laptop as well because the SSH key can access company code.

As for the desktop, I didn't and probably never will, because theft is less likely and that would be a pain to handle for nightly backups (it is turned on with Wake-on-LAN and then a cron backs up my home directory to my NAS).

Finally, I won't encrypt my NAS as well for the same reason: it would quickly become a hassle as I would have to manually decrypt the drives every time it boots after a power outage.

[–] Lawn_and_disorder@hexbear.net 4 points 1 week ago

Had nosey cops trying to get into my phones illegally recently.. do not understand people that dont encrypt shit

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 4 points 1 week ago

Yes, and for the life of me I don't understand why there isn't a default LUKS with hibernate partition in the Debian installer.

[–] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I used to, but then I nuked my install accidentally and I couldn't recover the encrypted data. I nuke my installs fairly regularly. I just did again this past week while trying to resize my / and my /home partitions. I've resigned myself to only encrypting specific files and directories on demand.

My phone is fully encrypted though.

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[–] naeap@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Yeah, on my laptop - because I travel with it and confidential data (like from my customers) could land in hands its not supposed to

No, in case of my desktop, because it's easier to access it in case of failure

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[–] mholiv@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (9 children)

I would strongly encourage people to encrypt their on site data storage drives even if they never leave the house and theft isn’t a realistic thing that can happen.

The issue is hard drive malfunction. If a drive has sensitive data on it and malfunctions. It becomes very hard to destroy that data.

If that malfunctioning hard drive was encrypted you can simply toss it into an e-waste bin worry free. If that malfunctioning drive was not encrypted you need to break out some heavy tools tool ensure that data is destroyed.

[–] scholar@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

1 torx screwdriver 1 hammer

not the hardest thing to scratch up the platters and then fold them into abstract art

[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week ago

I don't bother to take out the screws. I just drill handful of holes trough the whole thing. Or if you're really paranoid a MAP torch is enough to melt the whole thing (don't breath the smoke).

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[–] pemptago@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes. I encrypt because theft. I know PopOS and Mint make it 1-click ez. ...unless of course you want home and root on a separate drives. That scales difficulty real fast. There's plenty of tutorials, and I managed, but I had to patch together different ones to get a basic setup-- Never mind understanding exactly what I did and repeating it (the latest challenge I've been dragging my feet on). I do hope this is an area that sees more development in the near future.

[–] Jesus_666@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

That does make encryption was less appealing to me. On one of my machines / and /home are on different drives and parts of ~ are on yet another one.

I consider the ability to mount file systems in random folders or to replace directories with symlinks at will to be absolutely core features of unixoid systems. If the current encryption toolset can't easily facilitate that then it's not quite RTM for my use case.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 3 points 1 week ago (6 children)

I don't even know how to do it

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[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 3 points 1 week ago

I encrypt my laptop and desktops and I think it’s worth it. I regret encrypting my servers because they need passwords to turn on.

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