Summary
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The Marion County Record newsroom in Kansas was raided by police, who seized two cellphones, four computers, a backup hard drive, and reporting materials.
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A computer seized was most likely unencrypted. Law enforcement officials hope that devices seized during a raid are unencrypted, as this makes them easier to examine.
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Modern iPhones and Android phones are encrypted by default, but older devices may not be.
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Desktop computers typically do not have encryption enabled by default, so it is important to turn this on manually.
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Use strong random passwords and keep them in a password manager.
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During the raid, police seized a single backup hard drive. It is important to have multiple backups of your data in case one is lost or stolen.
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You can encrypt USB storage devices using BitLocker To Go on Windows, or Disk Utility on macOS.
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All major desktop operating systems support Veracrypt, which can be used to encrypt entire drives.
Main Take-aways
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Encrypt your devices, drives, and USBs.
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Use strong random passwords and password manager.
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Have multiple backups.
Although you don’t have to be smarter than the experts, just smarter than police. Few local PDs can bring the kinds of resources to bear to do a decrypt on a properly encrypted data store.
Obviously if you’re pissing off major state actors, all bets are off – they are probably already surveilling you and saw you type your password through a zoom lens pointed at your window, or worse.