On 08/18/2011 04:13 AM, Jrh wrote:
Dear Colleagues,
My institution is introducing concerted measures for improved security via
encryption of files. A laudable plan in case of loss or theft of a computer
with official files eg exams or student records type of information stored on
it.
Files, folders or a whole disk drive can be encrypted. Whilst I can target
specific files, this could get messy and time consuming to target them and keep
track of new to-be-encrypted files. It is tempting therefore to agree to
complete encryption. However, as my laptop is my calculations' workbench, as
well as office tasks, I am concerned that unexpected runtime errors may occur
from encryption and there may be difficulties of transferability of data files
to colleagues and students, and to eg
PDB.
Hello,
Whole disk encryption is wise in case the machine is stolen.
On Linux and Macs (I don't know other platforms) this is transparent
and I don't see how it could trigger some runtime errors (once the
computer is booted: the files are seen unencrypted by the operating system).
The only concern may be that for some really I/O demanding applications
(like video editing), this may slow down the video processing task.
However, with decent hardware and file system, this may be just an old
concern which crystallographers really don't need to care about.
Another minor drawback is that you will possibly need a password to boot
your machine (on Linux at least).
Regards,
F.
Does anyone have experience of encryption? Are my anxieties misplaced? If not,
will I need to plan to separate office files, which could then all be
encrypted, from crystallographic data files/calculations, which could be left
unencrypted. If separate treatment is the best plan does one need two computers
once more, rather than the one laptop? A different solution would be to try to
insist on an institutional repository keeping such files.
In anticipation,
Thankyou,
John
Prof John R Helliwell DSc
