Windows encryption could at least theoretically be audited via decompilation, whatever firmware happens to be installed on your random hard drive? Not a chance.

I think if a state entity is dead set on acquiring your data, they will do that once they have access to the chips.

This notion that your encryption- any encryption- is going to stop a state-funded actor from getting past to your data is just as ridiculous IMO as the people who stockpile AR-15's and cosplay soldiers on the weekends think they're a realistic threat to the same military that has predator drones.

If the government wants your data, they probably already have it, just like if they wanted you dead, you'd already be in the ground. Assuming there's enough left of you to bury anyway.

"State actor defeatist"-style arguments against taking any technical precautions often conflate two things that the government does: 1. Large scale mostly passive dragnet surveillance, 2. Individually targeted surveillance.

Reasonable people can admit that they can't do much about case 2, while still believing that applying countermeasures against 1 can be effective. Also note there is more than one government in the world that may intend to exploit your lack of privacy...

Just because you're given up on privacy and sovereignty doesn't mean you should go around infecting others with the same contagion.

True, but worrying that your hard disk encryption is vulnerable to the NSA is something that only makes sense if you're dealing with case 2, not case 1.

And yet, Afghanistan sent the US military packing.

> whatever firmware happens to be installed on your random hard drive? Not a chance.

Well, there's certainly a chance. Firmware is reverse-engineered all the time.

> The same chance as Windows encryption having a backdoor of course.

The NSA has loaded their firmware after the fact without the drives' OEMs cooperation:

* https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/nsa-hid-spying-software-in-h...