Microsoft is enabling BitLocker device encryption by default on Windows 11

mr_MADAFAKA@lemmy.ml to Technology@lemmy.world – 297 points –
Microsoft is enabling BitLocker device encryption by default on Windows 11
theverge.com
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yeah, no kidding, a real bitch if you want to back up your systems, and the hit to processing speed is significant, though with it enabled, the days of popping out a hard drive, and grabbing whatever the hell's on there with a usb connection are over

AES-NI has been standard for over a decade. There shouldn't be a significant hit to processing speed.

and i work with dozens of disparate windows systems on multiple hardware platforms on the regular, the speed degradation with bitlocker encryption still exists, and is noticeable

You've benchmarked this? Using what encryption algorithm, what processors, what benchmark?

More to the point, I think, is are there even any systems that will run Windows 11 that don't have AES-NI?

Performance without it is kinda irrelevant because there's no situation where you'd have Windows 11 and bitlocker and NOT AES-NI.

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the days of popping out a hard drive, and grabbing whatever the hell’s on there with a usb connection are over

Independent repair shops are going to suffer big time from this.

well, if the customer provides them the bitlocker key, then they can access and manipulate the data on the drive, if not, they're fucked

I've supported bitlocker in corporate deployments. I have also spent some time in independent repair shops. I have little confidence in users to supply a bitlocker key, let alone even know what one is. I anticipate a lot of "what? I already gave you my password."

Obviously, Microsoft will happily sell you one drive cloud backup to solve the problem they are creating.

You can still mount it to another machine if you have the key. It's an extra layer of pain in the ass, though.

I don't use an M$ account so if your key is backed up to the cloud (aside: can't wait to read the headline about when that gets breached) I don't personally know offhand how difficult it is to extricate your BitLocker keys from Microsoft.

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