this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2025
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

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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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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks 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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Yes because my distro also have encrypted /boot included

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks 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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks 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.

[–] Feathercrown 1 points 2 weeks ago

I have no significant private data on my disks. They can be wiped whether encrypted or not if they're stolen. And I like that in theory if my pc explodes I can recover the data with only the drive.

[–] netvor 1 points 2 weeks 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...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

I encrypt everything, with unique complex passwords, that I have a safe mnemonic system for remembering and retrieving.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

My issue is that I can never remember "a couple more commands" for the life of me. And I use Arch BTW, so the likelihood of me needing those is a bit higher than usual.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

All my important files are on a NAS, so if someone steals my laptop, there's nothing of value there without being able to log in and mount the remote file systems

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah all my drives are encrypted with LUKS mostly because of home burglaries (bad area and whatnot). I still keep backups regardless on drives that are also encrypted

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

No need as none of them are networked

[–] 9tr6gyp3 1 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

I made the mistake of not setting up encryption on my main 45TB zfs pool so I'm currently backing up everything on there to tape so I can recreate the pool (also need to change from mirrored to raidz) and then copying everything back to the drives. Although writing and reading each are around 6 days continuesly. Didn't want to bite the bullet and pay more then I absolutely had to and only got a LTO-4 drive and tapes.

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