[rdlsmith]

"Note that, if you show hidden files, you can see the encrypted sparse image on the backup. If you open that hidden image with the appropriate password, you can get at the files. But booting from it is easiest."

It's my understanding that you can't boot from a sparse image.

Anyway, my question at this point is still basically this:

Are Sparse Images (Not Sparse Images that had FV enabled) of a file system secure? That is, no FV used before the backup. Just the password required by using a sparse image backup.

I made a sparse image backup, logged out and back in as a guest user. I could open the sparse image (mount it) and see many of the files but I couldn't open any of the files in my other Home account.

Would someone that walked off with the external drive that contains such a sparse image be able to access my files from the Home directory? Even if they did a restore to another box of any type?