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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[–] yozul@beehaw.org 2 points 2 months ago

For my laptop, yeah. I rarely actually use it though. For my desktop not so much. I really don't keep that much personal information on it to begin with, and if someone breaks into my house they could probably get more by stealing the desk my computer is sitting on then by stealing the computer. It just feels like a silly thing to waste my time with.

[–] ebd6a8c9051028dc1607@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago

yes. if you live in a country without democracy. it is the only way to protect yourself and your data from nsa agent kicking your door.

[–] sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today 1 points 2 months ago

I always encrypt my computer SSD as well as my external backup drive. I just wish that when installing a Linux distro and when selecting encryption that it would work with multiple drives

[–] netvor@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

I do, laptops and workstations.

It's just too easy not to, and there's almost no downsides to it. (I only need to reboot, once a month or two.)

Well, unless you consider the possibility of forgetting the password a downside, so for that reason I keep the password in a password manager.

In case my laptop was stolen, there would quite a couple fewer things to worry about. Especially things like client's data which could be under NDA's, etc...

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago (18 children)

Absolutely. LUKS full disk encryption. Comes as an opt-in checkbox on Ubuntu, for example.

And I too cannot understand why this is not opt-out rather than opt-in. Apparently we've decided that only normies on corporate spyware OSs need security, and we don't.

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[–] SitD@lemy.lol 1 points 2 months ago (5 children)

are you guys using the bios ssd encryption option or a software solution?

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[–] LiamMayfair@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yes. Encrypting your entire hard drive has basically been a tickbox in the Fedora installer for a long time now. No reason why I wouldn't do it. It's, easy, doesn't give me any problems and improves my devices security with defence-in-depth. No brainer.

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 1 points 2 months ago

It’s a smidge more difficult on Debian if you want to use a non-ext4 filesystem - granted for most people, ext4’s probably still fine. I use it on my desktop, which doesn’t have encryption.

[–] Cysioland@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 2 months ago

I encrypt my workstations and backups thereof on external devices. To protect against theft or a lazy state-level adversary

[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No need as none of them are networked

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Do you physically crush and grind your drives once they are end-of-life?

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