Five of the Best Free Linux Disk Encryption Tools

An anonymous reader writes "Disk encryption uses software to encrypt the entire hard disk. The onus is therefore not on the user to determine what data should be encrypted, or to remember to manually encrypt files. By encrypting the entire disk, temporary files, which may reveal important confidential data, are also protected. Security is enhanced further when disk encryption is combined with filesystem-level encryption. To provide an insight into the open source software that is available, we have compiled a list of five notable disk encryption tools. Hopefully, there will be something of interest here for anyone who wants easy-to-use data encryption and security."

Comments

Re:Link? List?

[blacktulip]

They encrypted themselves so you can not see them.

Best of slashdot editing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Today we bring you the best of slashdot editing. We cut out all the hard parts for you, like links, and real information.

FYI: http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/2011040308270275/DiskEncryption.html

Re:Link? List?

[ColdWetDog]

Here. Not so hard, but bog - can't the submitter figure that out? Slow down, guys, nobody is gonna scoop you on this stuff.

XKCD

[Anonymous Coward]

http://xkcd.com/538/

There can be only one

[RenHoek]

http://www.truecrypt.org/

There we go.. I don't understand this is still a question.

Re:There can be only one

[Anrego]

dmcrypt for me!

But yeah, truecrypt and dmcrypt are all people really need to know about. They both do mostly the same thing with slight variation, which people choose is down to preference.

LoopAES is outdated, cryptsetup is a userspace tool linked to dm-crypt, and the other is specialized.

Pretty lame article.

Re:There can be only one

[westyvw]

I used to set up encryption using fuse and encfs. That worked well enough for me. The problem I have with Truecrypt is that I have to define a file size before hand. Is there a function for Truecrypt to use cowfs or auto resizing files?

Re:There can be only one

[sauge]

Cross operating system compatibility. I can put something (like my tax info) on a true crypt disk on my Mac, and then email it to my mom (an accountant) who can open it on her windows PC.

Which leads to another benefit, my mom is no system administrator, but she can open a file, enter a password, and double click the file within.

Further more, if I want to deal with it - I can put it on my Linux machines.

Finally, if a technician needs to fiddle with the system, I can unmount the drives and let them in with (less) worry about what they may find. (Tend to deal with health care information.) In other words, I can compartmentalize who can see what.

Re:Link? List?

[CyberK]

The submitter had the link (check Firehose), but it seems that the edititors deemd the submission to be too long and chopped it off. After all, this is Slashdot and nobody RTFAs anyway.

Submission untouched by human hands

[countertrolling]

It's an ad link site.. Turn off your cookies on these guys..

Information that is provided to advertisers consists of aggregate statistics that we collate. This includes geographical and psychographic* information.

When links are submitted to our site, we request that the sender provides us with their real name and email address.

You know the routine..

*Huh??

Re:Link? List?

[causality]

Can't the editor, "Roblimo," proofread the submission? Isn't that practically their entire function?

Can they? Yes. Do they? No. They don't even run basic spell-checkers as evidenced by multiple finalized submissions. I'd personally be ashamed to put my name to much of the work they produce. If they worked in the other 99.99999% of job positions bearing the title "editor" they would be fired due to poor job performance. In this shitty job market I imagine there are many thousands of people who would be happy to do better.

I don't get to slack like that in my job. If the "editors" here started acting like they were semi-worthy of the title I would seriously consider a paid subscription. Note, I don't expect perfection or anything like that. I just want them to at least try.

They should stop calling themselves "editors". Another title like perhaps "reposters" would be more appropriate and would remove the expectation that they act like, well, editors.

I notice that any post pointing out that the ad-laden blog they chose to link in the summary is one of the worst and least-direct (second-hand or third-hand) sources available for the story, or pointing out that (particularly for book reviews) the story itself is likely a Slashvertisement, well those get very quickly modded to oblivion. And I do mean *quickly*. I wouldn't notice most of them at all except that I browse at -1.

While I cannot prove that it's solely the editors doing that, it is known that editors have infinite modpoints. So I consider it quite plausible, especially considering that I can't be the only user who considers it useful information when someone points out what may be an undisclosed marketing motive. I tend to mod those "Informative" myself so long as they are thoughtful and can back up what they say. I have seen more unlikely things happen, I admit, but I have a hard time imagining that the majority of moderators find such information so objectionable.