this post was submitted on 02 May 2025
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I'm of the opinion that encryption based security should be compartmentalized. IE, an encrypted folder, or "safe" app. Safes in housing are already a concept that is already commonly known so it would be natural to extend a safe into the digital realm. This would also help in the idea that safes are locked with a key, so if the user loses their keys, whatever is inside the safe, might as well be lost.
Now if EVERYTHING is a safe, (always on encryption). People will never known the difference. Its a dangerous type of security that is likely to be more a loss than a benefit.
For most folks they could just write down their encryption passphrase in a secure location with the rest of their papers since 99.9% of the risk is thieves stealing their laptops. For most folks the biggest secure item they have is the one they use constantly their browser and all the passwords it stores to all their services. You know the thing they use constantly.
A compartmentalized approach makes sense when the laptop contains really vulnerable data like laptops which have been stolen with bunches of client data on it or a journalists communication with confidential sources etc etc. In that case you STILL want to encrypt the whole thing but you want to separately encrypt the really important stuff with a different key so that every time you open your laptop to watch cat videos on youtube you aren't also unlocking all the data you will have to tell your companies users you lost.
You are arguing for selective encryption, but I can't really find any technical argument in your comment.
Whether we are speaking of encryption at transit or rest, there's a general consensus that encrypting everything is best in every way except possibly performance for select cases.
For example, it allows hiding (meta)data about the really important bits, and with computers it's really difficult to tell which bits of (meta)data could be combined to abuse. Tampering is a consideration as well.