Comments on: How To Keep Your Data Safe On A Stolen Netbook/Laptop

By: Ankur Banerjee

Ankur Banerjee — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 07:54:36 +0000

Personally, I’d never choose to encrypt my hard drive. If an “Oops, there was a bug” happens you’re screwed.

By: Ankur Banerjee

Ankur Banerjee — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 07:52:01 +0000

…or you could simply install Adeona (http://adeona.cs.washington.edu/) and have it ‘phone home’ when it’s stolen.

By: Abhishek Nandakumar

Abhishek Nandakumar — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:31:43 +0000

I did read it. I would find running a daemon cumbersome. Nothing like not losing your notebook.

By: Apoorv Khatreja

Apoorv Khatreja — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:12:27 +0000

I think you didn’t read the post. The first thing that was suggested was ENCRYPTION, a good one, through TrueCrypt. I don’t think TrueCrypt runs all the time, it probably would have a daemon running in the background to encrypt/decrypt files on-the-fly. People who have used the app have reported that they did not notice/observe any memory or CPU hog by the application.

The other suggestions were for petty thieves looking only to sell the machine for its hardware or just snoop around the operating system to find some data related to financial stuff, such as credit card numbers, or passwords to online payment services. For the n00b thief, the above methods would work awesomely.

By: Abhishek Nandakumar

Abhishek Nandakumar — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:16:31 +0000

If you have access to a bootloader like grub, you have access to all the user accounts on that computer. No matter what you do, your data isn’t safe once someone else has physical access to the machine. The first thing I would do if I had to access information is remove the hard disk and connect it as a secondary disk on another computer. No boot loaders to load, break the permissions(easy) and access the information.

You can of course use encrypt your files using an app but having the app running to access all your files will be a pain in the arse for people using that app.