Data Security of my Mac OS X - whole disk encryption?

Hi there!

there is a hugh discussion about privacy since the so called BKA-law passed the german parliament. I love my country AND my privacy, so I am not really happy about this law change.
I don't want to discuss about this law with you or what I am thinking about, I 've got some question.

I know, the Mac OS X security settings are quite safe. I want to take a step forward. I am planing to encrypt my whole disk and use Pre-Boot Authentication.
Google told me, there are three possible solutions, at the moment:
- Check Point
- TrueCrypt
and PGP

So my question is, if anyone of you already uses this tools or got experience.
If I use pre-boot authentication, is it possible to run different "Software" by using different passwords?

flo

p.s.: sry for my bad English!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by der_flo

Hi there!

there is a hugh discussion about privacy since the so called BKA-law passed the german parliament. I love my country AND my privacy, so I am not really happy about this law change.
I don't want to discuss about this law with you or what I am thinking about, I 've got some question.

I know, the Mac OS X security settings are quite safe. I want to take a step forward. I am planing to encrypt my whole disk and use Pre-Boot Authentication.
Google told me, there are three possible solutions, at the moment:
- Check Point
- TrueCrypt
and PGP

So my question is, if anyone of you already uses this tools or got experience.
If I use pre-boot authentication, is it possible to run different "Software" by using different passwords?

flo

p.s.: sry for my bad English!

---

There is no way ding this on Mac OS X. TrueCrypt offers it but Windows only. No one right now knows how they try to make it work. I use Truecrypt containers for all my confidential stuff. It is cool, works transparent on a Mac and even offers to encrypt complete volumes (exept the boot volume).

Whatever Schaeuble & his gang are going to try, the data has to be planted on your Mac. There are lots of tools to prevent that. Even if the planted bugger makes it onto your Mac, it has to "phone home". Install Little snitch (www.obdev.at) to control any app that tries to send data.

thanks for your fast request.
LittleSnitch is of course already installed.

i thought, there is a way, compareable to some linux distributions, to realize something i imagined.
Does anyone know, where I can find something like the log from booting?

flo

PGP offers "PGP Whole Disk Encryption" for Mac OSX 10.4 PPC and PPC/Intel platforms.

Afaik the PGP solution has never been released. They are still working on that but well.

You can try to encrypt your home folder with OSX own solution FileVault but thats everything but secure, at least against goverment agencys or specialists. Alternativly you can use crypthed DMG container for your files.

Check the NSA configuration guide for more infos on these topics.

Truecrypt is a pretty good solution. the Mac version does not offer whole disk encryption, but offers pretty secure container encr.

TrueCrypt - Free Open-Source On-The-Fly Disk Encryption Software for Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X and Linux

PGP Whole Disk Encryption for OS X is definitely available, and has been for some time. I have been running it for about 3 months now in Leopard and it works very well. (Initial encryption of the whole disk can take a long time. My 2.4 GHz dual core takes about 18 hours to do a 500 GB disk, and uses a fair whack of CPU to do it. But after that you do not notice it at all, it just runs quietly in the background.)

It is also expensive, and PGP say there might be some kind of annual upgrade fee (which sucks big time!, though in fairness it is a very good quality program that does what it claims to).

But Apple suck even more for failing to include WDE in OS X. Other *nix based systems have it, including the latest release of Ubuntu Desktop I think. WDE is not a luxury any more, it is a basic security requirement for many users, and there is no excuse for Apple to leave it out. (Hint, hint, Apple.)

TrueCrypt would be great, if the WDE component worked in OS X. But it does not. Pity.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by volkspost

Even if the planted bugger makes it onto your Mac, it has to "phone home". Install Little snitch (Objective Development) to control any app that tries to send data.

---

Just a note - There are ways around LS if something/one has access on your machine..