Full Disk Encryption - dangers?

[plateaugame]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation recommends Full Disk Encryption:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/11/p ... encryption
"Full Disk Encryption (FDE) is one of the best ways you can ensure all of the private information on your laptop stays private in case it's lost, seized, stolen, or if you choose to sell or give away your computer in the future. .."

However, this concern was raised on the 'ask ubuntu' forum:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/429590/w ... -ubuntu-13
"An enormous DISADVANTAGE (for me) if you use option no. 1 and encrypt your hard drive, is that: 1) if you forget or lose your pass-phrase/key you lose everything and cannot access anything again, and 2) if your Ubuntu installation completely beaks apart (does not boot, get corrupted etc) or if your PC hardware fails, at least all your files are in the clear and you can still read them on any computer !"

So is that a valid concern? If the PC/laptop hardware fails, what would be the process of extracting and decrypting the installation?

[safn1949]

The encryption is on the hard drive,you should be able to get into it still. But now that you ask I will take an 80gb drive,encrypt it then try to access it as an external.

I'm super curious and I got that kind of time.....will post back in a few hours.

[Springfield]

Windows encryption often has the option to create a "key" disk or usb stick file, as a backup for passwords. Does your unix have that?

[safn1949]

Truecrypt has the same thing,I have not had time to test the external drive but I will.

[Banshee]

For corporate use we use Sophos SafeGuard Full Disk Encryption at work which uses AES 256 encryption methods.

It is a right royal PITA!!! The amount of times Windows has corrupted and we've had to boot into a virtual environment with CD to extract all of the user data from it

We have no choice in the matter as where I work should any of our data get into the hands of the public then we could face massive fines

[plateaugame]

The encryption is on the hard drive,you should be able to get into it still. But now that you ask I will take an 80gb drive,encrypt it then try to access it as an external.

I'm super curious and I got that kind of time.....will post back in a few hours.

Did you get a chance to give this a try?

[safn1949]

No I did not,been too busy. I do know that true crypt will decrypt a corrupted drive with their recovery feature. I had to do it once on a 1 TB drive,took 3 days but it worked.

I will try to do it tomorrow with the 80gb,quit my day job so I might get it.