[ale] Pros & cons on encrypting disks

[Christoper Fowler]

Scott Castaline wrote:
> Just want to get a feel for the pros and cons of encrypting my disk(s). 
> I just created a VM to install Fedora 10 before upgrading my system. I 
> chose to use the encryption option to see how it worked in the install 
> process and how it behaves once installed. I did notice that the boot 
> partition cannot be encrypted. Is this just a Fedora thing or is that 
> the encryption key is not present until the initial boot process is 
> completed? So what are the pros and the cons to this?
>   

Encrypting disks makes me nervous.  In the old days, data recovery was 
simple.  One could mount a file system in R/O mode and even
use dd if necessary.

Now, what if you lose the key or even the password?  When I played
around with a 40GB USB disk, I encrypted it.  One system could read
it immediately and another one I had to do some work to get it working.

To me, encryption is good when needed.  Maybe on a USB dongle
that is password protected with sensitive financial data.
On the OS's drive, with things like pictures and music, not so much.

Just my $0.02


> TIA
> Scott
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