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Ask HN: How do you encrypt your personal computers and/or hard drives?

5 points by WHA8m ↗ HN
Hi, I'm not a techie and I want to encrypt my stuff. I searched for old threads and found old threads [1] (2016) and [2] (2010). This is what I compressed:

- MacOS: FileVault2

- Linux (which I don't have): luks/ dm-crypt

- Windows: Bitlocker

- Hard drives: VeraCrypt (TrueCrypt back then)

Is this fine these days? Are there other, better (and user-friendly) options?

Protecting myself against three letters or anything is not the requirement here. I want my diary, notes, pictures, etc. safe from people (not institutions).

[1] Ask HN: How do you encrypt your laptops? (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11761491)

[2] Ask HN: Do you encrypt your laptop's hard disk? (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1683255)

4 comments

[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 23.2 ms ] thread
parmezan
Practically all famous Linux distro's offer built in encryption when setting up a new system using luks/dm-crypt. But you don't have to worry about it.

To encrypt a Windows 10 system u can use Veracrypt to boot the whole OS or just a container.

For Windows (Enterprise) you can also use BitLocker by Microsoft although the source code isn't trusted and I believe you have have a more expensive license in order to use it.

Yes you should encrypt your laptop. It's worth it in case you lose a laptop or it gets stolen nobody can read the data.

cantrevealname
> BitLocker by Microsoft although...

A further reason to avoid BitLocker is that it is incredibly easy to give Microsoft the decryption keys to your data if you're not extremely careful. I think the default setting was (and still is?) that Microsoft gets the ability to decrypt your data. I don't understand why anyone would think that is desirable.

NKosmatos
One extra vote for Veracrypt (https://www.veracrypt.fr). It's safe, has passed security audit, gets updated frequently, multi platform support with downloads for all OSes and it's free. Although it supports whole disk encryption, it's more suited for a virtual encrypted disk within a file.
runjake
One additional note about VeraCrypt is that it's not just for encrypting hard drives. You can also create encrypted file-based volumes that mount to your OS like an external drive.

It's an easy and unobtrusive way to get started with encrypting your files, and it's cross-platform to all the OSes VeraCrypt supports (macOS/Windows/Linux/etc).