Today i took my first steps into the world of Linux by creating a bookable Mint Cinamon USB stick to fuck around on without wiping or portioning my laptop drive.

I realised windows has the biggest vulnerability for the average user.

While booting off of the usb I could access all the data on my laptop without having to input a password.

After some research it appears drives need to be encrypted to prevent this, so how is this not the default case in Windows?

I’m sure there are people aware but for the laymen this is such a massive vulnerability.

  • easily3667@lemmus.org
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    13 hours ago

    Modern windows machines will be installed with bitlocker (full disk encryption). With manual installs it might not be.

    • llii@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 hours ago

      I think Bitlocker isn’t even supported on Windows 11 Home. I was shocked when I wanted to set up disk encryption on my wife’s notebook.

      • easily3667@lemmus.org
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        2 hours ago

        It’s got like a “lite” version. You have to use the terminal to check if it’s enabled but that’s that Microsoft started doing in win10 home. I assume some asshat in marketing got the agreement they could keep their branding even if Microsoft gave out encryption for free.