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I'm going to lend an old PC with dual boot (Ubuntu and Win XP) to a friend for few days. Ubuntu contains a lot of data that I want to keep confidential. I have protected my session with a strong password.

Is that enough to keep my data confidential?

I have heard that booting from a live CD can give access to the installed data; is that true?

Jorge Castro
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isoman
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1 Answers1

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You are correct. Someone could still access your data through a livecd. You should take a look into encrypting your home directory. They ask you to do it when you install ubuntu but you can also do it after the fact. Here is some information to help you: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EncryptedHome

The information on that page is good for Ubuntu 8.10 and newer.

Basically you need to do this

1) Make sure you have ecryptfs-utils (sudo apt-get install ecryptfs-utils)

2) Add a new user with an encrypted home - (sudo adduser --encrypt-home)

If you have any more questions or run into problems just reply :)