Re: [gentoo-user] Demise of Truecrypt - surprised I haven't seen t his discussed here yet?

[Mark David Dumlao <madumlao@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 5:20 PM, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> On Mon, 02 Jun 2014 10:53:51 +0200, Michael Hampicke wrote:
>
>> > I'm considering encrypting my home partition one of these days.  Given
>> > the things that have come out in recent months, back doors and such,
>> > what is a good program/software/tool to use that is well . . .
>> > secure? Is there such a thing now?
>
>> Depends on your needs, for encrypting complete devices/partitions try
>> the kernels dm-crypt/luks module. If you just want to encrypt a
>> directory try encfs, and for file encryption there's openssl and gpg
>
> Definitely dm-crypt/LUKS for partitions/devices, but why use encfs which
> needs FUSE, when ecryptfs does the same thing in kernel space?
>

for dual-boot systems, or simply from the point of system recovery, I
find it really attractive that I can, for example, open an encfs
filesystem in "the other operating system" (there's an encfs for
windows). Besides, I think the fact that you're doing encryption /
decryption on the fly completely overshadows the performance hit from
running a userspace filesystem anyways. Also, it's extremely
convenient to be able to mount / unmount the encfs on the fly without
su, sudo, or messing with fstab, as, for instance, with the case of
portable hard disks or usb sticks, where you don't want to
automatically unencrypt the contents unless you're prompted for the
password.
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