Windows Home Directory Encryption? 121
An anonymous reader writes "Home directory encryption has been available on Linux for a while now, and it is definitely a smart, useful feature as it is not usually necessary to encrypt the entire drive, just the private documents and software profiles in the home directory. Windows is getting better about keeping everything that needs to be private in the user's home folder. Is there a similar solution for Windows to securely, and preferably transparently, encrypt the home directory only? (Preferably open source so that the code is available for peer review)."
Re:EFS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:EFS? (Score:3, Insightful)
Enterprise and government have access to the Windows source to review it. Unless you are suggesting that OP plans to read through it himself?
Re:EFS? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you put it that way, there physically cannot be an open source solution here, because Windows itself is closed-source.
No matter how great open-source encryption software you can find,
On Windows, you can't have a home directory, let-alone run software to be able to encrypt it, without running closed source software.
The advantage of EFS (Encrypted Filesystem), is it doesn't require any additional software to implement, open source, or otherwise.
EFS is NOT included in Windows Home editions. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:EFS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Simple solution (Score:2, Insightful)
I know your post was meant to be ridiculing various Windows features, but it really just reveals your ignorance.
I thought it was meant to be ridiculing people who choose Windows and then don't know/use the core elements that actually make it worth using....
The RDP that comes with 2008 is really quite neat; you can now administer remote "RDP Apps" that, in my mind, totally replace Citrix and the like. Granualar application-level ACLs via RDP -- what's not to like? I wish there was a fully open source alternative that was that powerful. NX/VNC gets close, but the server isn't OSS... meh.
Re:EFS? (Score:1, Insightful)
It's built into the OS, so it's as open source as any other part of Windows. If open source is that important to you then you probably won't be using Windows anyway. Besides, it's pretty clear that the OP didn't know about EFS, and so was thinking about third-party tools. I think the standard in that case might be different.
Re:EFS? (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, I see this sort of thing all the time with TruCrypt and I have to ask ... Short of a few government agencies and a few paranoid dorks, who the hell uses this? It can't be used on a server unless you want a reboot to cause the server to require a human to fix it, so its really only useful to end users, more specifically laptops. In which case, if your data is THAT important, why the fuck are you carrying it around on a laptop in the first place?
This is just ridiculous. Its great the TrueCrypt does it, but anyone who actually needs it is probably going to use a different more obscure method, just to make it that much harder to bypass.
I guess maybe its the audiophile cryptographers who need to encrypt their laptops so no one realizes that their $1500 headphones and Monster cables are bullshit and sound the exact same as my $10 pair after you've heard the same sound effect 30k times while playing F.E.A.R. ...
Re:Warning: Known sockpuppet/troll (Score:2, Insightful)