Truecrypt encrypt

Hey guys,

I want to encrypt my whole drive (i mean I don't want anyone except people with pass can access pc) with TrueCrypt.
I found a guide

Code:

http://www.randyjensenonline.com/blog/using-truecrypt-to-encrypt-your-entire-hard-drive
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/howtos/how_to_encrypt_your_entire_hard_drive_the_easy_way_using_truecrypt

Doing as described in these guides will make my hdd unavailable to people without password? The only 2 ways to access it without password will be cold boot (reading something from ram - is it working on ddr2?) and brute force that may take ages with superlong and hard password?

Correct me if I'm wrong. I want to feel secure from this way too.

Plus is TC correlating with any backup software?
My PC is Intel Dual CPU E2220 @2,4 GHz 2gb ram nvidia gforce 9400 gt win7 ult x 86- is TC going to slow down my pc a lot?

ps. sorry if wrong forum

 

I'm not sure how well backup software works with it but if you use Truecrypt to encrypt your entire drive the only way to get in will be to know the password.

Anything 8 characters or more is secure for something like truecrypt. If you're feeling paranoid go for 12. If you're hiding secrets from area 51's quantum super computer go for 16.

 

I encrypted whole hdd with +30 characters, digits and some special symbols. So now I can feel secure?

 

35 or 64 character passphrase depending on what type of volume and how sensitive your data is

 

You can feel safe knowing that 1,000 years from now we still will likely not be able to break into that hard drive through brute force.

Keep in mind that for ease of use (retyping is a pain) you may want to shorten it. That's up to you. Just understand that after 16 characters it's basically fluff.

And make sure you don't write it down.

 

As for your question on backing up, there are only a few that will allow you to backup with full system/whole drive TrueCrypt encryption. You'll need to do research. One that I know that works well for this purpose is Paragon B&R 2012 using Paragon's own backup algorithm versus most backup software, which now are almost all built to work using Windows Volume Shadow Copy.

 

You can do sector by sector, but your backup will be as big as your partition...but it will be encrypted without any user input.

If you are using regular system encryption, you can back up like regular, but be sure to encrypt the backup with your software's encryption option...or store it in another TC container.

If you are using a Hidden OS, you have to do some work, as TC won't allow writes to anything that isn't a Hidden TC file system.

PD

 

I store my backups of my fully encrypted laptop on a dedicated USB external drive that is encrypted.

 

For clarification, remember that when OTFE software such as Truecrypt is used, the encrypted data is only secure when the system is powered off.
When your system is booted, anyone with access can see, and copy, everything. This includes nosy room mates to spyware downloaded from a malicious site.
Take some time to think about the data you are trying to protect and who you are trying to protect it from. This will go a long way in determining if Truecrypt or some other software is the best solution for you.

 

That's pretty basic stuff, but it's worth repeating, yes. TrueCrypt is a data safe. Think of a physical safe at the bank - if the door's open, anybody can get anything they want. A bank safe is only secure if it's closed. Simple. Same with TrueCrypt.

 

You will obviously want your backups to also be encrypted. I’d suggest if you do plan to use external drives to backup you can encrypt them as well with Truecrypt, then place them in Truecrypt’s favorites meaning you can set them to auto-mount at startup of your encrypted drive allowing whatever backup program you choose to run and store files in the background without incident.

 

I wrote it down on paper when I was thinking what kind of password I should use. But now I remember it, it's really easy password I mean easy for remember to me, not easy like qwerty123456789dog or similar

I know that I can protect my data with TC just when my PC is turned off. When my PC is turned in I have router firewall, Comodo Firewall, MSE, Mbam Pro

It's not like I keep a super extra information on my hdd (no business documents, no secret online banking, no online money making, no hard porn or whatever so bad), I just want to avoid any bigger troubles in future with justice system and police. I have a friend that already had a problems because he was active poster on nice warez movie forum - they took his computers and he payed a lot of money for all pirated stuff. I like do download sometimes too (of course just for tests, I usually buy things I like to support people hard work) so I wanted to make a job harder for them a bit You nobody know what tomorrow is gonna to bring!

Thanks for all suggestions guys, I'll consider buying new pendrives and store backup there

 

hopefully you realise that best approach is not to engage in illegal activities at all. Any advice given here is given with that in mind.