[gentoo-user] Encryption questions

[Dale]

Howdy,

As some may know, I'm making some changes and upgrades to my puter.  One
thing I'm considering, encryption of a select directory/mount point/file
system.  One thought I have, create a mount point named say "Encrypted"
and put anything I don't want widely seen or hacked in that directory. 
That would likely be on it's own partition or LVM setup.  I would likely
keep other things open.  Example, I may have /home on a partition of
it's own but then have the encrypted directory mounted on
/home/dale/Desktop/Encrypted.  I could even let that be my Documents
directory as well.  I'm not to worried about browser history etc.  Plus,
I could log into KDE and not have to access the encrypted stuff if it is
not needed.  I don't need encryption to check the weather.  lol 

How I do that isn't a big deal really.  My main question is this.  If I
go to the trouble of doing this, would I be *really* protected?  Is
there a easily used encryption tool that isn't easily hacked?  Also,
when I login, I'd like to be able to type in password etc and it be
available from that point on, unless I do something to lock it up
again.  Reason, I may even put some of my videos on that.  I watch TV
from that a lot.

Also, how hard would it be to do the same to my backups, since having a
open set of backups would render the encrypted part just available
elsewhere? 

While I get some of how encryption works, I don't keep up with it on a
weekly or even monthly basis.  I just see the occasional articles on
it.  I'd rather ask and get input from someone who uses and/or is more
familiar with this.  In other words, if it is worthless and someone
knows it is, then let me know.  If one tool is better/easier/etc than
another, I'd like to know that as well. 

Thanks.

Dale

:-)  :-)