Need some general advice about encryption.

[boing]

I'm a 3D visualiser and have been offered a substantial project but the client has asked me to sign a security contract asking for some data encryption. Specifically he wants flash drives and laptops leaving the office to be encrypted.

Encrypting a flash drive isn't an issue but I'm a bit nervous about encrypting my main computer (I work out of the office so it will fall under the laptop requirement)

I'm worried about the encryption having problems and locking me out of all my other client files, is it possible to simply create a drive letter for this project and just encrypt that?

 

[lxskllr]

It would probably be easiest to create a new partition on your drive, and encrypt that.

 

[John Connor]

Are you going to use Truecrypt? You can use a different drive letter.

 

[boing]

It would probably be easiest to create a new partition on your drive, and encrypt that.

Bad explanation on my behalf, that's what I meant to say by 'making a new drive letter'

 

[boing]

Are you going to use Truecrypt? You can use a different drive letter.

Not sure what you mean, do you mean instead of a separate hard drive or instead of a partition?

 

[Super56K]

Could you simply create a TrueCrypt container and put your project folder into that? That'd be simplest because you'd only need to mount/unmount as needed. If that's not enough for the client then encrypting your entire system is a fairly trivial process. There's not much risk providing you remember your encryption key, make a rescue disk, and, of course, backup your system before encrypting it. Also, don't forget to make encrypted backups of your project as well (in the case of full disk encryption).

 

[Oyeve]

Can you ask them to supply you with a laptop?

 

[boing]

Could you simply create a TrueCrypt container and put your project folder into that? That'd be simplest because you'd only need to mount/unmount as needed. If that's not enough for the client then encrypting your entire system is a fairly trivial process. There's not much risk providing you remember your encryption key, make a rescue disk, and, of course, backup your system before encrypting it. Also, don't forget to make encrypted backups of your project as well (in the case of full disk encryption).

I'll look into Truecrypt, that container idea sounds sensible. Does a rescue disk recover encrypted data if there is an issue?

 

[boing]

Can you ask them to supply you with a laptop?

Not really, I need a decent screen size and some decent power unfortunately

 

[John Connor]

I'll look into Truecrypt, that container idea sounds sensible. Does a rescue disk recover encrypted data if there is an issue?

No.