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- #What is bitlocker drive encryption pro
- #What is bitlocker drive encryption windows 7
- #What is bitlocker drive encryption windows
It's like slapping a combination lock with a 256-numbers-long combination on a locker holding the letter 'U'. Then, the math makes that particular bit into a 'combination' or key that is either 128 or 256 bits long. Now, a bit is just one piece of data, like a letter or a number. 128-bit or 256-bit encryption defines how many bits a single bit of your original data may be represented by. AES is the Advanced Encryption Standard adopted by the US Government as a standard in 2001 - hence the military-grade designation in the title. Then BitLocker creates the key, which is the way to unscramble that word, and holds on to it for you. It could come out as ESU, SUE, SEU and so on. Let's go through a very simplified process of encrypting the word 'USE'.ĭiffuser takes those three letters and scrambles them. Officially, this math comes in the form of algorithms, or sets of instructions, such as AES - 128-bit or 256-bit encryption, and Diffuser. Remember, all data can be boiled down to just numbers so it can be manipulated with math. Which is really cool, because if you encrypt your USB flash drive and you have sensitive information on it, you don't really have to worry about anyone getting that information if you lose the drive.īitLocker drive encryption takes all the data on your drive and applies a bunch of fancy math to that data. This type of drive does NOT require a boot volume.
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The other 'drive' is any removable drive like your USB drive. That would make booting your computer very difficult.
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Your computer will boot from this volume. You need at least two volumes on the drive to use BitLocker - a main volume that you probably will do your day to day work in, and another volume that is at least 100MB in size that will be your system's volume.
![what is bitlocker drive encryption what is bitlocker drive encryption](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/information-protection/bitlocker/images/manage-bde-status.png)
One is any volume or partition on a single hard drive. There are two meanings for 'drive' in this case. If you don't have one of these operating systems, I suggest you take a look at TrueCrypt and our TrueCrypt User's Guide: Secure Your Private Files. A drive encryption tool is something that takes all your data on any particular drive and make it completely unreadable to anyone but you. What BitLocker is, it's a drive encryption tool.
#What is bitlocker drive encryption windows
You can also find it in Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2012.
#What is bitlocker drive encryption pro
At this point, it is just in the Ultimate and Enterprise editions of Vista, and Windows 7, and with Pro and Enterprise editions of Windows 8. Not all Windows' operating systems have BitLocker bundled with them. Here, though, I'll be focusing on Windows' military-grade privacy tool called BitLocker.
#What is bitlocker drive encryption windows 7
If you're curious about what other cool stuff your Windows operating system might have, check out Christian Cawley's, " The Top 5 Cool Hidden Features In Windows 8" and Yaara Lancet's article, " 8 Hidden Tools In Windows 7 You Still Might Not Know About". What I am saying is that I'm going to explain how Windows BitLocker works, without you having to have a degree in computer science and cryptography experience.īitLocker is a feature of Windows 7 and 8 that is extremely useful, included in the operating system, and not nearly as many people know about it as they should. Ever heard that quote about trying to explain how a television works to an ant? I'm not calling you an ant, even though you are hard-working and enjoy the occasional sip of aphid milk.