Re: In light of what has happened with the theft of the VA laptop, what are the "best practices" for securing laptops?

[Dave Patterson <sdpatt2 () gmail com>]

Sorry, guys, for not responding sooner - several people have written
requesting technique for the Debian encrypted disk.  More detailed
information can be found here:

http://www.saout.de/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php

In a nutshell, a stock Debian kernel and stock package YAIRD (Yet Another
Mkinitrd) along with the package cryptsetup are all that's needed.

A boot option does not need to be passed at boot time.  The passphrase is
passed to the initrd, which then will boot the encrypted kernel.

Another way to do this is to have Windows on a primary partition at the
beginning of the disk, completely encrypted Linux partitions on the rest.

GRUB and the requisite initrd is on a usbkey.  BIOS (password protected) is
set to boot from USB first, hardrive second, floppy or cdrom last.

The thug with a gun at the airport demands you boot your computer, windows
comes up, he says 'you can go' - not 'WHAT'S THAT????'
-- 
Cheers,

  Dave