After the past week's NSA revelations, just what full disk encryption system should we be trusting? I think it's fair to assume that any commercial implementation is compromised.
[TrueCrypt](http://www.truecrypt.org/) or [dm-crypt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dm-crypt) are both open source (technically, TrueCrypt has source available but doesn't meet the definition of an open-source license, though there's some debate on that point), and thus publicly auditable.
Also, I'm less worried about FDE being vulnerable to Border Patrol than about, say, SSL vulnerabilities across the whole network. The plausible deniability, which they would need to use to protect their sources if they found information, is a lot lower if you know you have been stopped and your laptop searched, rather than just tapping all internet traffic so you don't even know when you've been searched. Mac OS X's File Vault 2 and Windows's BitLocker are probably sufficient if if you aren't particularly paranoid about being individually targeted for something big, but I would be more inclined to trust the open solutions.
I FDE (on macs, FileVault 2 is by far the easiest, even though Apple is one of the more likely backdoor providers), but I also don't keep anything sensitive on it.
If seized at the airport, it provides a useful bit of information on whether they can break filevault 2. It seems implausible they would even if they could without a "plausible non-cryptographic alternative".
Also, I'm less worried about FDE being vulnerable to Border Patrol than about, say, SSL vulnerabilities across the whole network. The plausible deniability, which they would need to use to protect their sources if they found information, is a lot lower if you know you have been stopped and your laptop searched, rather than just tapping all internet traffic so you don't even know when you've been searched. Mac OS X's File Vault 2 and Windows's BitLocker are probably sufficient if if you aren't particularly paranoid about being individually targeted for something big, but I would be more inclined to trust the open solutions.