[Ti] FileVault why is it users home?

[Justin R. Miller]

On Oct 27, 2003, at 8:21 AM, Robert Nicholson wrote:

> Does anybody know why the current implementation is the users home 
> directory?
>
> Why does it make sense to encrypt Music and Pictures?
>
> This feature should be turned on on a folder by folder basis.

Nice thought.  When I originally encrypted my 18GB home directory, I 
left out Pictures, Movies, and Music (which is 15GB by itself) and made 
aliases to the folders after I moved them into /Users/Shared (to avoid 
taking the time to encrypt them).  Then, at my leisure, I copied those 
folders over to my encrypted home directory, which took about two 
hours.  I'd like to see a folder by folder basis.

However, I can understand their implementation, as from what I gather, 
they are using a sparse image (i.e. adjustable), with encryption turned 
on, and mounting it as a separate device.  The OS takes care of making 
sure that it still appears at your home directory location.  It would 
be tricky to do that piecemeal -- I would think that you'd need a 
sparse image for each folder, with multiple mount points for each one, 
which might result in (greater) I/O overhead as well.

But I like their first cut, and I appreciate the effort! :-)

--Justin