[Macpartners] disk encryption

[Randal Hill]

disk images created with the Disk Utility are an excellent way to do  
what you need to do - I have been protecting personal financial and  
proprietary information
in this manner for several years using both 10.4 and 10.5.  10.5 has  
some capabilities that may not be in 10.4 such as being able to change  
a password on an encrypted disk image after you create it.

I recommend that you create the disk image by opening Disk Utility and  
going to File/New/Blank Disk Image, give it a name, change encryption  
to 128-bit, select your volume size (equal to a CD or DVD is  
convenient for backing up), and select sparse disk image under format  
(this creates a small dmg file that grows as you add files rather than  
a fixed size larger file).  Disk Utility will prompt you for a  
password - the protection of the encrypted dmg is only as good as your  
password, so use one adequate to your requirements.  I do not save  
important passwords in my keychain, but keep a copy in a safe place  
off the computer.  to move the files to another computer you simply  
copy the dmg and open it on the other computer where it mounts like an  
additional hard disk.

I do not know of any real down-sides to doing this - I have been doing  
it conveniently and safely for several years.  I cannot tell that  
accessing the files in the dmg is slower than un-encrypted content.   
of course, if you forget your password - you will not be able to  
recover the information.

--Randal Hill



On Jun 3, 2009, at 12:12 PM, macpartners-request at MIT.EDU wrote:

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>   1. disk encryption (David Schloerb)
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> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 13:20:59 -0400
> From: David Schloerb <schloerb at MIT.EDU>
> Subject: [Macpartners] disk encryption
> To: macpartners at MIT.EDU
> Message-ID: <p06230900c64b06025d99@[192.168.1.107]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
>
> Hi All,
>
> I am looking for an easy way to protect some of the data on my Mac G4
> computers (office desktop and home laptop) running OS 10.4.11, plus a
> portable hard disk that I carry with me. I think the solution is to
> use Disk Utility to create encrypted disk images for the small number
> of things that need protection, but I would like to know more about
> the pros and cons of this approach (and other options) before I start
> doing it.
>
> Please let me know if you have any wisdom about this that you would
> like to share.
>
> My main concerns are:
>
> 1) It needs to be easy to set up, use, and maintain.
>
> 2) I want to keep things like my SS number out of the wrong hands in
> the event that my computers or hard disk are lost or stolen--I'm not
> worried about the NSA or a supper hacker so much as a thief who might
> use my personal data if it was obvious.
>
> 3) I don't want to be locked out of my data in the future because the
> software is no longer around to support reading my files!
>
> 4) Although, encrypting the entire disk has some appeal (e.g., PGP or
> TrueCrypt), some of my work is computationally intensive (e.g.,
> analysis of experimental data) and I don't want to slow it down with
> an encryption layer. Also, as I am currently in the midst of dealing
> with some OS problems, my guess is that encryption of the OS would
> make recovery from such problems much harder.
>
> Thanks,
>
> David
>
>
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