Lately, one can hardly go an evening without seeing on the news how some breach in data security occurred. Even my own beloved Alma Matter has had problems losing data in unencrypted devices like flash drives. As a result here at TTU we’ve begun looking at ways of dealing with this problem by implementing more stringent encryption policies. Currently the discussion is still going on but in the near future I imagine that we will be seeing a much greater emphasis not only password protection but data encryption. In the spirit of looking for free and open source alternatives rather than paid ones I began looking at TrueCrypt for personal use and experimentation at work. So far I’ve been very impressed. TrueCrypt offers incredible ease of use and security. Among the many features included are travel drive encryption, whole disk encryption as well as simple encrypted “containers” or folders. From what I’ve read and seen so far the implementation is very user friendly and provides a great deal of flexibility.
There are a lot of implications when you start using encryption. For example what do you do when people use it for illegal purposes like the case of United States v. Boucher. Another related issue is the use of key logging software to capture passwords for encryption software. These issues will continue to be a played out and tested both in the schools, workplace, and courts for some time to come.