Which Encryption to use?

[Shahin]

Hello,

 

So I would like to encrypt my PC drives. It's all well and good to have secure passwords but you can easily take out a drive and plug it into another PC, load up linux and see everything. I'm trying to avoid that scenario. What types of protection do you use for your drives? 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

If you have a Pro edition of Windows and a TPM chip, you can use BitLocker. It does a pretty good job.

[svmlegacy]

+1 to @BlueChinchillaEatingDorito , All Zen based AMD chips, AFAIK (Ryzen 1200, 1700X) include a firmware based TPM. The biggest downfall of these is that you won't be able to upgrade your CPU while keeping the TPM.

[asquirrel]

3 hours ago, Shahin said:

Hello,

 

So I would like to encrypt my PC drives. It's all well and good to have secure passwords but you can easily take out a drive and plug it into another PC, load up linux and see everything. I'm trying to avoid that scenario. What types of protection do you use for your drives? 

Take it from me: DO NOT use any encryption tied to the hardware of your system. If it's Windows, try Veracrypt. If you're on linux, Ubuntu has a nice installer that will use dm-crypt and LUKS to secure your drives. This is good enough to keep script kiddies and the random police officer at the local police house out of your files. If you're trying to hide from the NSA, you're asking in the wrong place. That said, if you're trying to hide from the NSA, you're also willing to do a lot of things that are just plain a pain in the ass to live with.

 

So, in short, stick with dm-crypt/LUKS, or veracrypt. These are software based encryption methods that will allow you to move your drive from computer to computer, so long as you remember the unlock password for the drive. When a motherboard or CPU die, your drive doesn't become inaccessible.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

2 hours ago, asquirrel said:

Take it from me: DO NOT use any encryption tied to the hardware of your system. If it's Windows, try Veracrypt. If you're on linux, Ubuntu has a nice installer that will use dm-crypt and LUKS to secure your drives. This is good enough to keep script kiddies and the random police officer at the local police house out of your files. If you're trying to hide from the NSA, you're asking in the wrong place. That said, if you're trying to hide from the NSA, you're also willing to do a lot of things that are just plain a pain in the ass to live with.

 

So, in short, stick with dm-crypt/LUKS, or veracrypt. These are software based encryption methods that will allow you to move your drive from computer to computer, so long as you remember the unlock password for the drive. When a motherboard or CPU die, your drive doesn't become inaccessible.

With BitLocker, you still have a backup password available to decrypt the drive if your motherboard dies for instance if you cleared the TPM by accident for whatever reason. 

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Programs, Apps and Websites

[Shahin]

My motherboard is this - https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/H110M-PRO-VD.html

Where do I check whether it has a TPM chip?