On Oct 24, 2005, at 5:35 PM, R. D. Preston wrote: > I'm searching for strong full disk encryption software for osX > (10.4.2), and am leaning > toward SubRosaSoft's CipherDisk, but would like knowledgeable > opinions of this and/ > or other s/w packages that do the job. Anybody?...
I've not used Cipherdisk. I was going to have a look at it last summer, but it still didn't support anything beyond Mac OS X 10.3.8, and a quick peek at their site doesn't cure me of that idea [1]. I suspect this might be a continuing problem with any driver-level encryption program because they will have to figure out new patches every time Apple updates the native disk driver. I've been using Apple's FileVault on my laptop for quite a while and haven't had any problems. In fact, I don't even notice it. There shouldn't be any driver problems on operating system updates because it's built into Mac OS X. It uses 128 bit AES encryption, which is probably safe from anyone who doesn't use a supercomputer to crack my home directory. (There are something like 3.4 x 10^38 keys available. [2]) Of course, I do a few things differently because of FileVault. I have two accounts on my machine and only one is encrypted. That's the one that contains the bank account records and my plans for world domination. The other account contains incidental work and some of the really big files that I think may slow down the machine, if they were encrypted--video, for example. I'm also fanatical about backups because, if one bit of the FileVault stuff gets corrupted, it may turn out that none of it can be read. That's also why I'd never use it on a desktop machine without a UPS. > Also, what's the best storage for the Blowfish (448-bit) encryption > password. I have > USB & Firewire ports. I store my passwords in a Keychain file. All Keychain files are strongly encrypted. I've also set a master password for the laptop which is stored in a safe place on paper so I can get into the machine, if something goes wrong with the account password. [1] Look at the System Requirements section on <http:// www.subrosasoft.com/MacSoftware/ index.phpmain_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=17> [2] According to Mathematica, there are 340282366920938463463374607431768211456 possible keys. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 2408 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.math.louisville.edu/pipermail/macgroup/attachments/20051024/d1e8d525/attachment.bin
