Encrypt data on MBP? General security question.

Having had the wonderful experience of my MBP being stolen, I'm thinking of the best way to better-protect my data on my new MBP (15").

I now sync with my office file server using Chronosync. If I were to encrypt the data on my MBP and that data syncs over, how would I "unencrypt" the data on the server? Some of the files are shared by other users on the server, so would they have to "unencrypt" them?

Alternatively, I could install something like LoJack. What about password protecting Contacts and Mail? Is there a way to do that?

Maybe I should just have one folder with sensitive information that gets encrypted?

Ideas???

If you have auto login disabled (i.e. you need your name and / or password on start-up) then you can use Filevault (Prefs > Security) to encrypt your User folder.

Since files are encrypted and decrypted on the fly, the data on your server will be free from encryption. But a thief who tries to access your data will not be able to access it.

You should probably read through this and this first if you go the FileVault route. You'll note that FileVault requires that you have free space equivalent to your home directory to do this. So, for instance, if your home directory is 50GB and you only have 30GB of free space, you're going to have to make your home dir smaller (by 10GB so each are 40GB) or get free disk space.

COMtnBiker said:

Having had the wonderful experience of my MBP being stolen, I'm thinking of the best way to better-protect my data on my new MBP (15"). Ideas???

Click to expand...

In addition to the replies you already received, you might want to purchase and use Orbicule. That along with setting a firmware password will give you good protection. (Better than LoJack)

Regards.

Thanks guys. I'll look into all these options! Gotta protect the 1s and 0s!