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Whole-Disk EncryptionUnless you ve been holed up in a bunker somewhere and this is the first book you picked up on escaping into the outside world, you ve seen numerous reports of widespread data theft. Maybe even your own data has been stolen. Sometimes what s stolen is a simple USB flash drive, and other times it s a whole system laptop or desktop.
The majority of laptop theft is opportunistic someone with a criminal bent notices you have left your laptop unattended, or arms up and visits the local coffee shop with intent to grab the first laptop he sees.
As a result, the aim is merely to steal a chunk of hardware that can be sold to the next person.
Most criminals are not going to care about the data on the laptop because, quite frankly, if they had the skills necessary to extract it, they d be gainfully employed by organized crime instead.
But consider the thrifty entrepreneur who goes to his local pawnbroker with the intent of acquiring an inexpensive laptop given that the criminal, the fence, and the pawnbroker each have minimal computer skills, if any, it is entirely likely that the laptop this entrepreneur receives still has retained all of its data.
It s for that reason that the technology journalist with too much time on his hands and not enough ideas for a story will often visit the local secondhand vendors of ill repute and purchase all the secondhand computers...
