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Mac OS X Leopard - ARCAism

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Figure 8-9. Last warnings and two more options before turning on FileVault<br />

The “Use secure erase” option will cause the Secure Empty Trash option to be used by<br />

default when the trash is emptied. The “Use secure virtual memory” option will additionally<br />

overwrite any memory traces that may be on your hard drive to further protect all of your data.<br />

If you are ready to go, click the Turn On FileVault button.<br />

When you initially turn on FileVault, you will be immediately logged out, as the system<br />

encrypts all of your data. Depending on the amount of data you have in your home directory,<br />

this process could take some time.<br />

Once FileVault is set up, using your protected account will be pretty much the same, as your<br />

home directory data will be decrypted when you log in.<br />

As mentioned, there are some disadvantages to using FileVault:<br />

• File sharing of all types will be disabled for the FileVault-enabled account.<br />

• Remote access will be disabled.<br />

• There will be some minor performance issues, especially the time required to log in (as<br />

data is decrypted) and log out (as new data is encrypted and traces are cleaned up).<br />

Additionally, other minor delays for various tasks will occur.<br />

NOTE FileVault provides some very serious data protection, and despite conflicting with<br />

some other features of <strong>OS</strong> X, if you must work in an entirely secure environment and data security<br />

is extremely important, this will help provide that. On the other hand, for most users, this<br />

will be overkill. If you simply wish to keep a handful of files encrypted, there are a number of<br />

utilities available that will accommodate you.<br />

FileVault Considerations: The Good and the Bad<br />

CHAPTER 8 LEOPARD SECURITY 151<br />

Besides what’s already been mentioned, there are some serious considerations you should think about<br />

when deciding to use FileVault:<br />

• While in general, passwords are required to access a user’s data on a running system, there are ways<br />

to work around this, such as booting the computer in Target Disk mode. When using FileVault, your<br />

data is still encrypted, so even though someone may have access to it, they can’t easily do anything<br />

with it.<br />

• FileVault stores your entire home directory in a single encrypted file. If this file becomes corrupted<br />

due to a hard drive failure or something else, all your data will be lost.

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