TrueCrypt

Glad you got most of it back. Glad YOU are back!

The same goes for locked files goes for regular files: back things up independently. One company I worked for years ago had test data, live data, back up data, grandfather backup data and finally archives of back ups. They had scores of 200MB disk packs (about 16 inches in diameter, 12 inches high!) Each one was backed up this way. The company had the money and a dedicated computer operator team to do this. Today, of course, I have a 3 gigabyte backup drive about the size of a good paperback book that's 15,000 times the size of one of their drives!

Songs are a good way to remember very long keys:

o1say2can3you4see5by6the7dawns8early9light

You never have to write it down. Just remember the name of the song.

Key breakers have several mathematical ways of breaking encryption. The software looks for patterns that matches patterns that are familiar using several different techniques. The shorter the key is, the less number of pattern test matches the software has to do. That is, of course, that the searchers have not already broken the encryption method already with what is called a back door. A great number of encryption schemes for computers today already have been broken or have a back door in. So far as I know, and have heard about, TrueCrypt has no back door and is secure. The thing is, you have to have a long key to make the patterns difficult to match up. And the problem with long keys is that they are hard to remember.

All this calculating and obfuscating is very powerful for a lock, but completely useless if someone already knows your key. For example, if someone catches you keying it in and memorizes it themselves. Or, if they have a key logger running on your system. Or many other ways to find your secrets and bite you with them. Russia and the U.S. proved that many times over during the cold war. Remember WWII Germany thinking their encryption methods were unbreakable? And England came along with their decryption machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine) and really screwed Hitler over!

For me, it is mathematically impossible to get illegal stuff from my hard drives. My system is completely safe even from the most dedicated computer sleuths. Even if they have 10 key loggers on my machine, they still can't get anything on me. My system is that good. My complicated method? Everything on my machine is legal. Period. Here in Canada, of course. In Afstanisgran, it probably is illegal to have pictures of beer, but so long as I don't go to Afstanisgran, I'll be okay.

:)