what dose this do

Jeroen de Haas dajero at dajero.nl
Sat Sep 27 16:57:40 UTC 2008


On Sat, 2008-09-27 at 10:03 -0400, William Biggs wrote:
> when I installed fedora 9 I seen I can encryption system what dose that
> do ? 

Short answer: It'll make it very hard for people with physical access to
boot your computer and read personal files (possibly containing
passwords or other sensitive information). 

You pick a pass phrase which is used to encrypt most of the data on your
hard disk. By default, all Linux partitions except /boot are encrypted.
When you turn your computer on, you will be asked to enter your pass
phrase. Using the correct pass phrase, Linux can decrypt and read the
data. If your computer is powered off and someone else tries to access
your files, he/she will not succeed as he/she does not know the pass
phrase.

Here is a quick example showing why this is useful. Suppose you have a
laptop and it is stolen. At least, you now know that it will be very
hard for the thief to access your files. The thief will not be able to
read/use any information without the pass phrase.

I hope this clarifies things a bit,

Jeroen 




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