I've been trying to find an answer concerning whole-disc encryption and keep coming up short. Assuming PGP-disc, TruCrypt and so on work the same way, what happens when accessing data on an encrypted partition. And is there a difference on how this works if the "C" vs the "D" drive is/are encrypted.
For example, lets say I'm working on a Word Document. I'm trying to keep this data from prying eyes.
1) If my main HDD is encrypted, then Word, the OS and the word document are working in an encrypted 'container'. Does this protect someone from viewing the contents of the work... can someone with a virus or maybe OS cache or memory still have the file in unencrypted view?
2) If the data - not the app or OS - are in an unencrypted container is this different from above?
3) Would this only work if I use some sort of encrypted memory system (I think this is built-in to OS X and some Linux (w/ SE Linux or such) and maybe OpenBSD). How about Windows?
4) Or, is the only purpose of the encryption to prevent someone from walking away with the media holding the data from being able to read it without the passwords?
I'm not working on super secret information. It would just be nice to keep some electronic copies of important documents without some basic fear a trojan or someone stealing some data physically will work.
Sorry for length. I hope this helps others probably sharing the same question.