Personally, I’ve never bothered encryting my data before this. Why? Because I live an open life. But hey, if you lose nothing in depriving a cracker or pisher of a moment ‘s pleasure, what’s the point of making the bad guys’ life easier?
So here is the encrytion tool I stumbled upon. It’s called TrueCrypt. Now, i liked it because it passed my standards:
-its free
-it uses strong and recognizable public key encryption algorithms
-its easy to use
-very small size
-no adverts and “buy me now?” crap
-source code is available (which means that this is developed openly and is not beholden to a particular company.)
Hey, its 2006, maybe it is time to talk about hard disk encryption. And based on the download statistics on their website, thousands upon thousands of people are downloading this everyday. It is really easy to use. (I managed to encrypt my hard disk without having to read the any directions at all. 😀 )
I really recommend using this software. Encrypt your data. Use it. And don’t forget to back up. 😀
Princess of Antiquity 
Whilst it is recommended that you encrypt your data (I don’t… not yet, at least), it is also recommend that you select what to encrypt or you may suffer some performance loss specially when you do a lot of computation. The added layer of encryption may contribute to it.
IMHO, it is better to have encrypted disk images, which is easier backed up, copied, mirrored, etc. than having an entire disk encrypted.
Posted by rom | December 11, 7:27 am, 7:27 amI agree. The problem with true crypt is that you should mount first your encrypted volume everytime you have to use it. So, its like pertitioning your disk. Keep most of my files in the encrypted part but the programs in unencrypted part for better performance. Aside from the mounting hassle, the performance is almost the same with the unencrypted disk.
But in the case of Flash Disks, portability will be compromised because in order to read your files, you have to use the same software to decrypt your data.
Posted by abbi | December 13, 3:23 am, 3:23 am