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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Yes, any laptop without an encrypted storage drive will have its data accessible by someone booting from a live USB.
It really is a massive vulnerability, but it's not well known because so few people even understand the concept of a 'live USB' to make it a widespread threat or concern.
So yeah, if you're ever in possession of a Windows machine that doesn't have an encrypted disk, you can view the users' files without knowing their password via a live USB.
It's also not limited to laptops.
This is not that big of a deal most of the time, since you are the only person interacting with your computer, but it's worth remembering when you decide to recycle or donate -- you have to securely wipe in that case. Also bear in mind, if you do encrypt your drive, there are now more possibilities for total data loss.
Oh, fun fact: you can change a users windows password inside Linux. Comes in handy for recovery, ie, user forgot their password.
Modern windows machines will be installed with bitlocker (full disk encryption). With manual installs it might not be.
I think Bitlocker isn't even supported on Windows 11 Home. I was shocked when I wanted to set up disk encryption on my wife's notebook.
It's got like a "lite" version. You have to use the terminal to check if it's enabled but that's that Microsoft started doing in win10 home. I assume some asshat in marketing got the agreement they could keep their branding even if Microsoft gave out encryption for free.
Personally I found it made more sense to just bring an old pro license so I could be sure it was enabled.
I have a Windows 11 work laptop, I might try it out and see what happens
I'm happy that you're on a journey of discovery. This is not an insult. The word is partition. Someone corrected me on the spelling of something last night. We all make mistakes.
(especially with reference to a country with separate areas of government) the action or state of dividing or being divided into parts.
And this is why we say physical access is root access.
Absolutely it's crazy that it's so simple that you can do it in the space of 5v minutes.
You should look into HDD platter recovery. There's some really high quality stuff on YouTube.
Aw buddy.
Go look at the free software called autopsy
By the way, no different for Linux, if you boot off of USB you can mount partitions and access anything if not encrypted and linux windows, encryption is not the default.
Same in Linux. No disk encryption and everything is easy accessible if you have physical access.
Unless someone ticked the “encrypt storage”-box in the installer, you don't even have to pay for Pro to use it!
Anon discovers computers
This is a case where Windows-bashing is hypocritical. Almost no Linux distro has disk encryption turned on by default (PopOS being the major exception).
It's dumb and inexcusable IMO. Whatever the out-of-touch techies around here seem to think, normies do not have lumbering desktop computers any more. They have have mobile devices - at best laptops, mostly not even that.
If an unencrypted computer is now unacceptable on Android, then it should be on Linux too. No excuses.
It's dumb and inexcusable IMO
No, it's a choice, because:
History... encryption didn't exist in the beginning. Upgrades won't enable it.
Recovery... try telling the people that didn't backup the encryption key - outside of the encrypted vault - that their data's gone.
Performance... not such an issue these days, but it does slow your system down (and then everyone complains)
So, please continue to encrypt your data as you choose and be less judgemental on others, esp. anyone new
No excuses.
I will definitely say I wish encryption setup was a lot easier in Linux. Windows is like "wanna Bitlocker?" Done.
With most Linux installers, if you're not installing in a very default way, and clicking that box to encrypt the drive, it's time to go seriously digging. For a while.
I managed to encrypt a secondary drive with the same password on my EndeavourOS laptop, but I still need to enter the same password 2 times before getting into the OS.
I consider that a feat, and I'm not touching it for fear of losing everything lol.
Yes, I feel your pain.
Encryption drives sound like a good idea until the subject of unlocking them comes up... and automatically unlocking the drive for the OS isn't really helping.
But, for user data, it can be unlocked automatically during login. The Arch wiki covers this.
But backup your data 😉
Blah blah blah. Unencrypted data is the wrong default in 2025 for any OS. Linux should not be a poor man's OS.
It depends on your use-case.
Encryption of data at rest (this discussion) is mostly helpful for physical theft, so a device that never leaves the house, there's little reason for encryption.
Similarly, on a lower powered mobile device, maybe you only want / need user data to be encrypted, and there's no need to encrypt the OS, which keeps the performance up.
Maybe you want the whole thing encrypted on your high performance laptop.
So, it's difficult to define a sane default for everyone, thus making it an option for the end user to decide on.
Linux has more choice than Windows - and the encryption algorithm(s) can be verified - so it's definitely the better choice.
You can't enable encryption after the fact? What a backwards system..
For which OS?
It can be enabled at any time on Windows & Linux. It's just optional.
It's your bullet point number 1
Almost no Linux distro has disk encryption turned on by default (PopOS being the major exception).
it's usually an option in the guided disk partition
If an unencrypted computer is now unacceptable on Android, then it should be on Linux too. No excuses.
Linux is about choice, not whatever someone else thinks it's acceptable
Sure. But defaults are important.
Defaults are generally who do not want to understand in depth what they are doing (no offence). Example from other sphere: in R-Cran (used to write statistical models), some functions have defaults to either choose a particular algorithm or an optimisation value. I have heard almost about nobody among students, PhDs and even higher up the ladder, who took the time to understand what is happening below the shell. Instead these people took just the defaults, it worked (result was significant), done. However, if they may have chosen another algorithm, things may have turned differently, which would open up a box with many questions concerning modelling adequacy and understanding of data. It is the same with defaults in Linux.
Echoing Jubilant Jaguar's sentiment about defaults mattering, I think that sometimes an excess amount of choice can be overwhelming such that a user is less empowered to make choices about things they do care about (Leading to a less steep learning curve). Sensible defaults need not remove anyone's choice
I don't disagree with the premise. I may disagree encrypted hard drive by default a sensible choice
If an unencrypted computer is now unacceptable on Android, then it should be on Linux too. No excuses.
When is the last time you carried your desktop outside? Forgot it somewhere?
I always turn on LUKS during install. The only exceptions are when I'm doing tests of different distros on my machine that I lovingly call "FuckAround".
It really is the best way to find out.
It's the same situation with Linux just a simple login only has very basic protection you need to encrypt your disk if you want to make sure no one can read it.
Windows does support encrypted drives with Bitlocker, unfortunately Bitlocker's default settings leave it vulnerable to many different attacks.
While booting off of the usb I could access all the data on my laptop without having to input a password.
This is entirely expected behavior. You didn't encrypt your drive, so of course that data is available if you sidestep windows login protections. Check out Bitlocker for drive encryption.
I thought BitLocker was enabled by default on Windows 11, which is a terrible idea imo. Full disk encryption by default makes sense in professional settings, but not for the average users who have no clue that they'll lose all their data if they lose the key. If I had a penny for every Windows user who didn't understand the BitLocker message and saved the key on their encrypted drive, I'd have a lot of pennies. At the very least it should be prompted to give the user a choice.
bookable Mint Cinamon USB stick
Does book still mean cool?
No idea, it's meant to be bootable
Yeh. But also this allowed me to save my files from my dying windows drive while moving to linux, so sometimes giant security holes can be handy.
I'm sure there are people aware but for the laymen this is such a massive vulnerability.
This is only a vulnerability if you suspect a threat actor might physically access your computer. For most people, this is not a concern. There's also the issue that it has processing overhead, so it might make certain operations feel sluggish.
Encryption is not a panacea, because if someone ever forgets their password (something common for the layperson), the data on that drive is inaccessible. No chance for recovery. Certain types of software may not like it either. It's one of many considerations someone should make when determining their own threat model, but this is not a security flaw. It's an option for consideration, and most people are probably better off from a useability standpoint with encryption disabled by default.
A secure future proof Whenblows 11 is akin to a healthy wealthy fentynal addict.
How old is your laptop? Pretty much every Windows machine I've ever owned after a certain year requires you to type in your Bitlocker key, including my first-gen Surface Go from 2018.
Also, you often have to manually set up encryption on most Linux installs as well - I did it for my Thinkpad. I need to do it for my desktop as well - I should probably do a reinstall, but I'm thinking of backing everything up and trying to do it in-place just for fun. On top of that, we can finally transition to btrfs.
Yep! They don't teach this stuff because consumer level cyber security is in the absolute pits of despair and moreover, they're trying to do away with what little we have access to. Governments and police agencies like how easy it is to access files.
Personally I don't bother with full disk encryption (FDE) since I don't really have anything private on my main computer. Just a bunch of game files, comics, movies, etc. Anything extremely important such as tax documents, personal data, etc. is honestly very small and I keep in a little Proton Drive folder, <1GB total. I think the best approach is to simply educate yourself and be aware of what's worth protecting and how best to protect that. Just enabling FDE and thinking you're safe ignores all the other avenues that personal data can be stolen.
My current pet conspiracy theory is that FDE with BitLocker isn't even worth it on Windows due to the TPM requirement. Why is that a bad thing? Your system probably has fTPM supported by the BIOS, why not just enable that?
Integrating with features like Secure Boot and Windows Hello for Business, TPM 2.0 enhances security by ensuring that only verified software is executed and protecting confidential details.
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5283799 (I don't believe we'll see this EXACT implementation of DRM, I'm just providing an example of TPM being used for DRM and that these ideas have been in consideration since at least 2009).
Now, if I were Microsoft and I wanted to exert an excessive amount of control over your system by making sure you couldn't run any inauthentic or "pirated" software to bring it more inline with the walled garden Apple approach they've been salivating over for the past decade+, you'd first need to ensure you had a good baseline enabled. You know, kind of like the thing you'd do by forcing everyone into an OS upgrade and trashing a lot of old hardware.
It won't be instantaneous, I don't know exactly how or what it's going to look like when they start tightening their grip. Again, this is all speculation, but it's not hard to connect the dots and their behavior over the past couple years does not give them the benefit of the doubt. Microsoft is no longer a company that can be assumed to be acting in the best interest of the average consumer, they're not doing this for your security. They want to know that your computer is a "trusted platform".
EDIT: Further lunatic conspiracy theories: BitLocker is/will be backdoored so Microsoft forcing you into that ecosystem further guarantees they have access to your system. This all stinks to me, like your landlord telling you how you can arrange the furniture in your own apartment.
