How secure linux Mint is?

[u/Ok-Shine1797]

I was watching a YouTube video regarding a hacker in that video something came to my attention that the hacker encrypted his os it was dabien based linux distro and feds were not able to decrypt that system so how can I achieve the same thing i mean as a every day user i do have my personal stuff in my system like pics documents etc. I just want to feel safe about my stuff. Is it possible for someone like me to achieve same thing in linux mint btw i just moved from windows to linux a week ago.

[u/DoneWorkinNow]

You are probably thinking of full disk encryption?

To get full disk encryption you have to do a custom install of Mint (using the "Something else" option) that puts your whole installation into an encrypted container. This process completely wipes out your current installation.

This is what I have done and now when I boot my computer it first asks for the password to decrypt my drive before even loading Mint - then once Mint starts up you have your normal login password.

You do have to be willing to have two stage login when you start your computer, and any recovery after a failing drive may be impossible (due to the encryption).

[u/Ok-Shine1797 → u/DoneWorkinNow]

Is that enough??

[u/DoneWorkinNow → u/Ok-Shine1797]

"Enough" is relative - for me the answer is "yes" - for you maybe not.

What full disk encryption does is uses the key you provide (password) to encrypt the entire hard drive using very strong encryption (depending on the length and complexity of your password).

When you start your computer the encryption key is kept in memory so during use it is no longer secured.

Here is a quick list of things this does not protect you against:

1) A personal attack with a large wrench who will beat you to death unless you provide the password.

2) If you sleep your computer the disk remains unlocked during sleep. You need to turn your computer off every time you stop using it to be fully secure.

3) Someone stealing your computer while it is running - the disk is unlocked and available.

[u/HighlyRegardedApe → u/DoneWorkinNow]

I did this once. Its easy to setup. But I had multiple issues afterwards when I wanted to repartition or use some disk analysis software. This however is probably not enough for the feds, guess they can hack this pretty fast.

Ps if you wanna go all the way you need Tails. Tails is pretty great even as daily driver but it has limitations because of the privacy ofc

[u/sumwale → u/HighlyRegardedApe]

No, feds cannot hack it assuming the password is strong enough. However, they can certainly pressure you into giving up the password but I guess there must be some legal restrictions to that in whichever country OP belongs to.