Password Strength on Truecrypt System Partition

[jamin100]

Over the next few weeks i will be encrypting the staff laptops. I intend to use truecrypt and encrypt the entire hard drive. I've done this on a few test machines and it seems to be going ok..

If you use encryption at all - how complex are your passwords? (numbers of characters etc)
Do you use different passwords for different laptops or one establishment password?

We also plan on getting encrypted USB drives where I was going to use the same password - one less for the staff to have to remember ..

TIA

[sparkeh]

Hey I am in exactly the same position as you as was wondering the same thing.

As you know, TrueCrypt recommends passwords over 20 chars with a mix of numbers. I am not sure that this is really feasible though. I was planning to have a generic phrase with a unique phrase appended so that it wasnt too hard to remember for the staff.

At risk of hijacking the thread how are you planning to manage the memory sticks if staff are going to be using them at home and on school machines?
As far as I can see, I can use traveller mode for their home machines but it requires admin privs so cant do it this way in school. Therefore I have to install and configure TC on all the machines manually?

[jamin100]

At risk of hijacking the thread how are you planning to manage the memory sticks if staff are going to be using them at home and on school machines?
As far as I can see, I can use traveller mode for their home machines but it requires admin privs so cant do it this way in school. Therefore I have to install and configure TC on all the machines manually?

I'm not using truecrypt for the memory sticks. I'm going to buy some Integral AES Encrypted drives ( Link ) There about £13 (2GB) each and destruct the data if the password is entered wrong 6 times.

They don't work on mac's though. Although I have found that it will work on Bootcamp but not through a virtual machine in osx.

None of our staff have macs anyway