Depends on what sort of underlying file system you want to use on the drive. For Linux filesystems (ext4, btrfs, zfs etc), here’s a good start: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dm-crypt
For NTFS, BitLocker is already baked in to Windows.
Hard agree, and you can see some success stories here and there where communities get municipal broadband up and running. Legacy companies and GOP legislators on their payroll are very hostile to this however, preferring to loot the Treasury (in the form of subsidies) and continue delivering subpar service. Would be cool to see at a state/national level though.
I think as a turn-key solution, the prebuilt enclosures are fine. I have a two-bay Synology that works well. If you’ve already got components though, DIY is probably going to give you a lot more granular control. I’m planning on building out a home server rack including a TrueNAS VM or something similar.
Yeah it’s a special game, and a masterclass in “show, don’t tell” exposition.