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Comment by Glohrischi | Hacker News Reader

My harddrives (laptop, work laptop, desktop, server) contain emails, browser sessions, saved passwords, personal data from family and friends.

I do not want someone stealing my laptop on a train ride potentially being able to have all of that data.

With a proper real backup strategy, i have everything save. I do not need easy access to a hard drive from a broken computer.

But hey you do you :)

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Cool. Everyone's threat model is different. As long as we're not writing passwords on sticky notes attached to the monitor, I don't think there's any need to be throwing stones.

Hey now, I use rot13 on my sticky notes.

Gotta bump that encryption up - rot26 is twice as secure.

Secure rot* variants require UTF-8 and mappings that shift characters between {1,2,3,4}-byte encoded-character-sizes. That varies the message length, which prevents any message-length or traffic analysis.

The Snowden leaks revealed that the NSA is flummoxed on how to tackle variable character lengths. However, they've cracked rot26 using custom ASIC supercomputers, so it should be considered insecure even though it's twice as good as rot13.

I did not throw a stone, i only clarified my counter position for others to understand why I encrypt.

Sensitive data written down on a sticky note is arguably more secure than that same data sitting on an unencrypted hard drive, at least in a home setting.

> Everyone's threat model is different.

Everyone's threat model is different, but some are better than others, and maybe we shouldn't equate taking time to explain why with throwing stones.

Are you saying you bring your desktop on a train ride as well? Laptops with encryption make sense; if you need to encrypt your desktop, I have questions.

Burglars are a thing.

Also a reason to have off-site backups. Many people have done backups to local servers, only to discover that they have no way to recover their data because thieves stole everything.

Simple hypothetical: "A disaster hits and the workstation owner is unable to return to the location the workstation is stored. During that time period the workstation is stolen by a gang of looters."

Ah yes a typical Tuesday for me

I'm not getting insurance for the normal case. I get insurance for the bad cases.

The good thing though: the effort is low. You think through it once and you have your encryption and backup strategy for a long time.

I have a NAS System which only runs when i need it, i scrub every month and that basic setup is the same for the last 12 years.

I have one safety concept for everything and not random ones for random devices.

Every machine is encrypted, unlocked per login.

Encryption is basically free so.

My inference machine is the only drive I leave unencrypted, but that's because it has the models on it, llama.cpp, and nothing else, and I want it back up and running services after a power-failure. My other desktops are encrypted to make hard drive disposal easy.

I would. It doesn't even require theft. The naive burglary mitigation is just a happy accident.

I want the crypto-shredding retirement of each storage device. I don't assume I can delete/scrub/overwrite at the time a device goes out of service. I have a box of older HDDs that I still have to get around to destroying properly, because they exist from before the days of practical FDE.

I encrypt my desktop. What if someone breaks in and steals it? My tax returns are on there, banking and investment info, etc. And what if I'm careless about disposing of an internal drive in an old machine that's in the closet, etc. I usually drill or sledge drives, but what if I forget? Encrypting all drives makes sense.

My data is mundane and mostly my art projects and photography. I don’t believe I am important or interesting enough for someone to do anything with my data if they somehow managed to get it also I don’t have emails, saved passwords, banking info or that kind of sensitive info on my computers so meh I guess.

> I don’t have emails, saved passwords, banking info or that kind of sensitive info on my computers

Then where do you have it? Notes on a post-it? Or is this a very specific definition of "computers"?

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