How do I ...

With regard to laptop security, please be advised that you can:

1. Password-protect your Quicken data.
2. Password-protect your Windows XP user account, and (if using XP Professional) encrypt all your data files.
3. If contemplating a switch to Windows Vista, setup something called BitLocker (if your computer supports it) and encrypt the entire content of your hard drive.

"Melvin" wrote in news:eLLDh.1122174$5R2.394718@pd7urf3no:

You can also set a power on password and/or hard drive password on your laptop.

I'm amazed at how few people take this simple precaution.

Better yet, get Truecrypt

and create an encrypted volume on the laptop. Truecrypt is a free, ultra-secure, and reliable program for securely encrypting data.

Install Quicken to the encrypted volume, and have it store its data files on the encrypted volume. I do this on my home system, along with any other data I consider 'sensitive'.

I wouldn't get any 3rd party encyryption "system" produced by an unknown company; stick with those that are provided by the major software vendors.

Because "major software vendors" *never* screw up, never leave security holes open, and never leave in back-doors, right?

Did you even read the Truecrypt site? It's Open Source, and thus has had many eyes review the code to make sure it's clean. It implements *many* well-known and proven encryption algorithms and lets you choose what you want to use, not just whatever your "major" vendor decides you should have. It complies with several established standards. And again, it does this all out in the open - not the "trust me, it's safe" that your precious software vendors force you into. How do you really know they're safe?

Truecrypt also has no hardware requirements like BitLocker, and doesn't require that you buy an upgraded OS license to use, like BitLocker does (BitLocker is only available in Vista Ultimate). Truecrypt runs on my

6-year-old hardware which originally ran Win2K (and now XP, with no upgrade to Vista, because the hardware just can't handle it).

Oh, and I can take my TC volume on the road w/ my USB stick (all I do is copy one file, it's a disk image), use it on any computer running Windows or Linux, and know that if I lose it, my data won't be compromised.

Has this been shown to use strong encryption with no backdoors?

Professional) encrypt all your data files.

XP account passwords can be easily bypassed. Some PCs are still shipping with FAT-formatted drives running XP, which doesn't make encryption available even if you're using XP Pro.

BitLocker (if your computer supports it) and encrypt the entire content of your hard drive.

As I noted in my other post, according to MS's feature grid, BitLocker is only available with Vista Ultimate. On a $599 Dell Dimension E520 (no customization), that's a $199 upgrade. Increase my PC's cost by

33% to get one feature that can be had by other, zero-cost, means? I'll pass.

Power-on passwords are easily bypassed. Especially in desktops, but it's not hard on laptops either.

I suggest you take a look at the Truecrypt web site

Truecrypt is open-source, and the encryption algorithms it uses are widely known in the security community, and known to be solid.

Personally, I think this system (where anybody can review the source code) is far more secure than an offering by a "major software vendor" that is closed- source and therefore could have a back-door written into the code.

Nothing is 100%! You know that. That said, do you lock your car?

Hardly. If so, please provide me the link that shows how this is done.

If you are running XP with FAT drives you're an idiot!

Hardly. Again, show me how it's done if it's so easy.

And regardless - you still lock your car don't you?

But it provides the method to allow you to eliminate such risk. Why? Because any such backdoor or crack will need to appear in the code, code which you, and literally any other crypto expert, can examine. Try that with bitlocker!

Truecrypt is, for all intents and purposes, 100% secure, provided a secure passphrase is used to secure the encrypted volume.

What the previous poster was suggesting is that this utility may have backdoors or other cracks that are only known to the government or insiders/developers. Open source will not, in and of itself, eliminate such risk.

Ha ha ha - I didn't mean to stir up so much controversy. But I did fail to give my justification for not going with the 3rd party product in this case.

It is my experience that "bolt on" applications often get broken at some point when the primary software provider distributes an update to its product. With most types of "bolt on" applications, this introduced incompatibility will be inconvenient but will not result in a total loss of use of the primary product or the bolt on application. With drive encryption, well, I just wouldn't take that chance because it's my expectation that everything would break, irretrievably.

Sure, there are software management methodologies that large IT organizations can use to identify these issues in advance and deal with them (testing, isolation & phasing of software roll outs). However, for a poor user (with no IT department) who's at the mercy of the operating system vendor to distribute updates, and when such updates are distributed automatically, I'd say it's kind of like playing russian roulette.

But Truecrypt isn't (or doesn't have to be) full-drive encryption. You create an encrypted disk image and then mount that via Truecrypt. It appears on your system as a different drive letter.

I suggest you actually take the time to look over truecrypt.org. I think you'll see that your concerns are not an issue with this software. Plus, who's forcing you to update in the first place?

Give me 10 seconds with the Clear CMOS jumper or a screwdriver so I can yank the battery. Need to get past the Windows logon password? I'm told that the Ultimate Boot CD will get you there (haven't needed to use its services myself).

If someone has physical access to your computer, they can beat pretty much anything that isn't true, strong encryption.

Locks only keep out the honest. Yes, I lock my doors, but there are still 6 big pieces of glass which are easily broken, allowing someone access to the contents of the car.

As I mentioned in my other post, locks only keep out the honest. And my car (as well as yours) has at least two "backdoors" that allow anyone to bypass the locks. They're called windows. If you want to use a car analogy, using real encryption for your files would be like keeping your car inside a bank vault.

And yet there are thousands, if not millions, who do exactly this because it's what their PC vendor gave them. They'll never know the difference. You're calling them all idiots?

My point exactly. Thanks for making it for me!