Full Disk Encryption - Anyone Tried These?

DriveCrypt Plus Pack
http://www.securstar.com/

SafeGuard® Easy
http://www.utimaco.com/content_products/sg_easy.html
Hi
I've never encrypted a whole drive before and I'm afraid of the possibility of totally losing all the information
If anyone has used these, or has experience with any particular full disk encryption products (good and bad) I'd be grateful for your comments.

regards
Kaupp

 

I tried something last week and had to format my computer cause I lost my password ... couldn't log in ... so watch out lol

DCPP is a nice product, I used it and I liked it.

 

We use Safeboot to good effect. We combine it with ActivCard smartcards to support pre-boot authentication.

 

I'm trying out Drive Crypt Plus Pack right now but am having problems with it. The Bootauth installation is not working properly and I cannot boot into my laptop with this installed. DCPP suport is trying to sort it and they are quite quick off the mark. (I've used Drive Crypt for a couple of years without any problems at all.)

 

Safeboot only seem to cater for corporate customers now.

"Our consumer products are discontinued as from the 1st of August 2004."

 

DCPP works great, only disadvantage it gave me is with my Laptop. I have a Toshiba Qosmio which allows booting up in 'Qosmio' mode. This means booting up to where my PC acts exactly like a TeleVision. The disadvantage DCPP gave me was loosing the ability to boot to anything but Windows. I have contacted DCPP Customer Support, but no response yet. It would be nice if DCPP recognized the different boot buttons on my PC (one for Windows and one for TV mode).

Anyways, PGP has simular software which I am planning on trying soon. It not only encrypts the entire harddrive like DCPP does, but it is OPENSOURCE which means NO backdoors:

http://www.pgp.com/products/wholediskencryption/index.html


PGP Desktop Professional 9 has the Full Disk Encryption built in also:

http://www.pgp.com/products/desktop/professional/pgpwholedisk.html

 

So far I have found the following advantages of PGP Full Disk Encryption over SecurStar DCPP:

1. PGP gives the ability to manually or automatically pause and resume disk encryption before and after rebooting your PC at any given time.

2. PGP automatically pauses encryption of the HardDrive when PC is running on battery power(This is very convienient; PG assumes you have more important things to use battery power on when your PC is unpluged, since you are probably on the go.)

3. PGP has more options on log-in screen (like ability to skip encrypted HardDrive and boot to alternative)

Some advantages DCPP has over PGP:

1. Alternative logon screens(which can attempt to hide the fact DCPP is being used).

2. Prevention of keylogging passwords entered into DCPP.

3. Ability to insert a hidden Operating System into default Operating System without traces.

4. Support for auto-login to Windows.

PGP Full Disk Encryption also fails to detect the boot method ('Qosmio' mode or Windows) and boots into Windows no matter what method I choose. PGP and DCPP both have these problems of assuming the boot method on the encrypted Hard Drive is the default Windows OS.

Also, I would like to note that both of the above mentioned programs work perfectly with Jetico's BestCrypt transparent encryption(even of the Windows Swap File), which allows for two forms of Swap File encryption when the file is unmounted by both programs. This is something I find truly beautifull.

 

Not so. It's not open-source. Pick your product based on features because there is no open-source WDE.

 

Yes it is and you should know this:

http://forums.pgpsupport.com/viewtopic.php?p=25203&sid=309e5e31f70c7635ef47aeaee549a86b

 

You're pointing out one of the threads that I used to reach the conclusion that it's not open-source. The discussion spanned 2 more threads on the PGP forum and 2 threads on the TrueCrypt forums. I'm not sure what your point is. I remember my own threads.

My conclusion is it's not open-source because they only release a partial source code. They don't release the code for their installers and a couple other things. So, you can't run PGP Desktop entirely from compiled sources. So, you have to rely on the downloadable executable to install the program. So, it's not open-source.

If you have another definition of open-source, I'd be happy to hear it. I've stated they release more source code than any other WDE provider, but it's not full source code disclosure.

HexMan

 

hi, i think Zimmermann talks about the PGP licencing in this podcast
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail116.html

however, i might be wrong because i've heard afew interviews with him and i heard it awhile ago now.

i thought the whole point of PGP (and other good encryption programs) is you get to see the source and compile it yourself if you want?? the PGP source code was loaded onto servers for people to download when it was first released, it wasn't GPLed but he used some other licence. he then sold PGP to a company which made him a director. i think he sold it on the condition the code would always be free for home use

EDIT
i just read HexMan's last post. if you're going by the fact the installer changes the binary checksum, or something along those lines to do with the installer, well the installer has nothing to do with PGPs source code.