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ABIT's Secure IDE Motherboard
Frank Caviggia writes "The Inquirer has a story about ABIT's spiffy new IC7-MAX3 motherboard. Apparently, this motherboard has a feature called 'Secure IDE,' which is marketing-speak for hardware-based encryption ... ABIT goes on to claim that 'Secure IDE' 'will keep government supercomputers busy for weeks and will keep the RIAA away from your Kazaa files.' Pretty bold claims for a motherboard maker ..."
Wouldn't that require some intelligence by the user? I mean like not sharing their file library? It's not like the RIAA can just go into people's homes and start busting open computers for pirated music.
The RIAA isn't going after people because it finds files on their hard drive, it goes after people because it sees them sharing these files online, unencrypted. This technology is worthless against the RIAA in that respect.
A little more info:
It looks like this (physically) small key plugs directly into the encryption/decryption chip (the interface looks like a USB plug but the picture doesn't show it well; the interface itself has a 4 pin header though).
It looks like to boot your computer, the key needs to be there. So make sure the police never show up while you are using the computer, never keep the key on you and keep your case open all the time so you can attach/detach it easily?
Nice idea though. Just not entirely practical.