Disk encryption is not something most personal computer users think of when they consider ways to boost the security profile of their computer. A firewall? Yes, that in the minds of most is what computer security is all about. However, a firewall is a network security tool, and it is useless if your computer is lost or stolen. That is when disk encryption comes into play.

It's time all of us made a commitment to this basic data security. With full disk encryption all data is protected by default and prying officials at least have to jump through legal hoops before they can start casually thumbing through all your private data.

Disk encryption is one method you may use to enhance the physical security rating of your computer. From my experience, it is rarely used, which is a shame because it is one of the most effective safeguards against unauthorized physical access to data stored on a computer.

What happens if someone gains unauthorized, physical access to your computer? Even with all the fancy firewall and other network security tools running, If the disk is not encrypted, check mate! Your data is now shared. This short tutorial shows you how Fedora implements disk encryption and how that protects your computer if it ever falls into the wrong hands.

CentOS 5.3 now comes with disk encryption. When you install the operating system you have the option to encrypt block devices, partitions that you create. Block device encryption requires a passphrase or key as authentication in order to access the data on that partition.

"IP addresses, string of numbers that identify computers on the Internet, should generally be regarded as personal information, the head of the European Union's group of data privacy regulators said Monday..."

Shred utility overwrites a file to hide its contents, and optionally delete it if needed. The idea is pretty simple as it overwrites the specified FILE(s) repeatedly, in order to make it harder for even very expensive hardware probing to recover the data. By default file is overwritten 25 times.

I'm a blogger but I like to write about personal things that don't belong in a blog. I have been using a standard text editor to manage my personal writings but there are always shortcomings with standard editors when it comes to keeping a personal journal. I recently happened upon a very nice application tailored specifically for people who keep a personal journal.

A type of application software that functions as a personal organizer is called personal information manager (PIM).