Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Location-Based Encryption

Posted by michael on from the what-if-the-hub-goes-on-the-fritz? dept.

davidwr writes "Eweek reports Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has a new way to prevent theft of company secrets on stolen laptops: 'Wozniak offered a peek into his vision for the company on Ziff Davis Media's Security Virtual Tradeshow, where he introduced "wOz Location-Based Encryption," an application that uses GPS tracking within a wireless hub to encrypt and decrypt sensitive data for large businesses.' Today's encryption is good enough but I do like the tracking capability. Imagine your laptop screaming 'I'm being stolen! I'm being stolen!' and paging security as the janitor walks out the door with it."

3 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. British intelligence and self-destructo laptops by call+-151 · · Score: 5, Informative

    This has come up before- here is a link to a 2001 Wired article about the British intelligence services using laptops with ``a built-in electronic self-destruct mechanism that erases a laptop's hard drive if the case is opened by force'' when a code is forgotten, as well as ``a tracking feature that allows a computer gone astray to call home." This was after a spate of embarrassing episodes where laptops with lots of important info went missing. I don't know if it's been implemented but this does seem to have some interesting applications, potentially...

    --
    It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
  2. Thinkpads and RFID by terrencefw · · Score: 4, Informative

    IBM Thinkpads have had RFID in them for a while now, to prevent them being taken out of specific areas.

    --
    Like tinyurl, but one letter less! http://qurl.co.uk/
  3. Re:Not totally secure? by nmg196 · · Score: 5, Informative

    > This allows the device to at least estimate where I am if it
    > has a weak signal somehow. I don't really get all the details...
    > but it works so I don't complain.

    Well a GPS receiver has about 8-12 channels with which to look for the satellites. If it knows roughly where you are, then it can use that information, together with stored almanac data (info relating to the orbital positions of the satellites over time) in order to better guess *which* satellites it should try locking on to. It basically speeds up the process of getting the all important 'first fix'. If you didn't tell it where it was, it would simply take longer to get the fix - but it would still get there eventually.

    I must admit, I wasn't too impressed when I received my first GPS and the very first question it asked me when I turned it on is "Please select the location of this device using the map below". I was like, "huh, aren't you supposed to tell me that?!". :)