If you encrypt your HDD....don't lose your password

[theprodigalrebel]

My first thought was, "Do people really need to store their most fucked-up porn on an SSD?"

 

[frostedflakes]

Worst thread in the history of Anandtech.

So bad I think it gave me cancer.

 

[Colt45]

I see it's amateur night. :awe:

 

[Schfifty Five]

Ugh. So I've used truecrypt on my boot drive for several months. Somehow the PW just fell out of my brain today when I went to turn on my other computer. Looks like I have a 60GB SSD brick. Fuck me.

always something wrong w/ your life huh?

 

[Arkaign]

My first thought was, "Do people really need to store their most fucked-up porn on an SSD?"

lol I guess they need really fast access

 

[zinfamous]

Unless one is a superspy or storing the nuclear launch codes, I fail to see the purpose of encrypting an entire hard drive (individual files are another matter).

kiddie porn. he has lots and lots of kiddie porn.


...or perhaps he killed the Lindburg baby and the evidence is on his SSD?

 

[Nintendesert]

Special Ed. is in session on Anandtech right now.

 

[middlehead]

kiddie porn. he has lots and lots of kiddie porn.


...or perhaps he killed the Lindburg baby and the evidence is on his SSD?

Could be both.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

? You can't format over an encrypted drive I thought...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA.

What a dumbass.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

wait....if it's that easy why doesn't the FBI or whomever takes encrypted drives just format over the HDD and recover the data they wrote over?


And mine's encrypted because I have my SNN and tons of financial info on it.

I hope you're joking?

 

[Lifted]

If your password isn't 150+ characters they will break into it using a simple backtrace.

 

[MrMatt]

http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=removing-encryption

wait...so if someone puts the hdd in another computer and moves the files off..they unencrypt?? wtf?

 

[Phoenix86]

Unless one is a superspy or storing the nuclear launch codes, I fail to see the purpose of encrypting an entire hard drive (individual files are another matter).

I work in health care, all our HDDs are encrypted in case they are stolen. Lost/stolen encrypted HDD means there's no HIPAA violation.

Of course we have an admin accounts/ability to reset passwords because users + passwords=fail.

 

[AstroManLuca]

If your password isn't 150+ characters they will break into it using a simple backtrace.

And once they do that they will call the cyber police and the consequences will never be the same.

 

[Numenorean]

wait....if it's that easy why doesn't the FBI or whomever takes encrypted drives just format over the HDD and recover the data they wrote over?


And mine's encrypted because I have my SNN and tons of financial info on it.

*facepalm*

Do you even know what the fuck "ENCRYPTED" MEANS?

 

[dainthomas]

If your password isn't 150+ characters they will break into it using a simple backtrace.

Yep, that's standard procedure for the Cyber Police.

 

[Mark R]

wait...so if someone puts the hdd in another computer and moves the files off..they unencrypt?? wtf?

Well yes - but they need to have the password.

The first step in the instructions is 'mount the truecrypt volume'. You can't do that without the password.

 

[JTsyo]

.....ok, so let's say they format the HDD.
Then they use recovery software to get back the data that was there before the format.
They will then have a whole load of encrypted, and therefore still useless, data.

Problem not found.


Encrypting the drive doesn't just put a lock and key on the door, with all the perfectly-ordered data huddled inside, hoping no one breaks the door down.

Encrypting the drive goes into your house, puts everything into a mathematical blender, and then stores the key to putting it all back together into a locked safe. If anyone breaks down the door, they're going to see a horrendous, random mess. If someone burns down the house, and then somehow rebuilds what was in there before, they're going to have that same horrendous, random mess again.



Yeah, you at least need some kind of RAID setup for that stuff, at least 1TB.

Is the key stored within the encryption? I thought the key was just what would return the data to the proper form. So if you put in the wrong key you would get garbage out.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

If your password isn't 150+ characters they will break into it using a simple backtrace.

I made a GUI interface in Visual Basic to handle this.

 

[Juddog]

wait...so if someone puts the hdd in another computer and moves the files off..they unencrypt?? wtf?

You dun goofed!

 

[Ns1]

if you format your hard drive the consequences will never be the same

 

[Legendary]

truecrypt encryption means your files are scrambled (to put it basically), not that the bits on the drive itself are scrambled. without truecrypt, no computer can undo the scrambling of your files, but the drive CAN be formatted back to a normal state

 

[Gooberlx2]

wait...so if someone puts the hdd in another computer and moves the files off..they unencrypt?? wtf?

Well....yeah. Assuming you know the password to mount the encrypted volume in the first place, remember it's the drive/partition/file-container that's encrypted and access restricted.

Think of it like a locked door to a house. Once you're already inside, you have access to everything (unless there's a safe, i.e. encrypted zip file or something)