08-11-2004, 06:03 AM

using file vault...

pros? cons?

let me know.

08-11-2004, 06:33 AM

Pros: If you are one hella of a security paranoid freak or bordering or on clinical paranoia, this is for you. Takes about 149 trillion years to crack it Apple says. So, if you work for the government, this is defintely for you too. Also, encrypts and decrypts stuff on the fly with 128-bit encryption so you don't have to worry about the Federal Security Service(Russian Intelligence) finding about what the US plans to do with our supposed "war" budget just because you left it unencrypted.

Cons: Real hog in resources because of the whole encrypting and decrypting stuff on the fly. I would only use it if you had a 1Ghz G4 or higher with at least and I mean AT LEAST 512MB of RAM. 1.5GBs preferred of course. Heck, with Filevault, even 2GBs would be good if you are doing anything processor intensive. More memory the better. One real problem though if you have memory issues or just remembering passwords. One Master Password for the whole FileVault. You forget this password, you can just kiss your Hard Drive good bye. There is no backdoor with FileVault. This thing is more secure than your secure deposit box. At least if you show the proper identifacation, they could probably take it out somehow. This is impossible not unless you have 149 trillion years to sit around and wait for it to get decrypts. The only other thing I don't like about it that it encrypts your entire Hard drive. ENTIRE HARD DRIVE! It's not like everything we do is confidential!

I don't use FileVault much because I am a DV editor and who in the world would want to take my source files of me interviewing someone?

Conclusion: If you work for the government, do secret government contract work, don't want your competitor to steal top secret coporate information or a very paranoid person, FileVault is defintley for you. Otherwise, for the normal home user, the superuser passwords and a user password and locking your firmware up will do the trick.