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Seagate To Encrypt Data On Hard Drives
Krishna Dagli writes "Seagate, using their new DriveTrust Technology, will automatically encrypt every bit of data stored on the hard drive and require users to have a key, or password, before being able to access the disk drive."
Seems unlikely.
Would Seagate really attempt to market a drive that was going to protect pedophiles and terrorists? (Not to mention us ordinary citizens who don't wholly and utterly trust the organs of the state to act systematically in our best interests.)
If so, it's a brave move. But somehow it just seems so unlikely...
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Laptop computers with DriveTrust-based hard drives would prompt users to type in a password before booting up the machine. Without the password, the hard drive would be useless, Seagate officials said.
Even data-recovery specialists would not be able to help if the assigned password somehow gets lost, said Scott Shimomura, a senior product marketing manager at Seagate.
Good thing passwords are never forgotten.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
DriveMisTrust sounds more like it.
FTA: Though DriveTrust is proprietary.... Not much use unless it's published and described - unless they do that most serious users are going to discount it. I hope it's actually robust though as there will be an awful lot of people relying on this for home use. How many of them are going to have that nice warm fuzzy "I'm safe" feeling and therefore not bother with all the other good things like patching and spyware-awareness etc.
The news should be that this was announced some time a go, but is still delayed. I've been reading press releases (such as this, sadly undated example) since March of this year (yes, almost 8 months a go). No release date given in the article provided by the submitter, but I've heard rumours of Q2 2007.
This should be good when it's released, but I've long since stopped holding my breath.
Because I don't want the added lag of hardware en/decryption with every write/read.
Because I don't want one more password per computer that I, as an IT admin, need to keep track of.
Because I don't want even the operating system, swap, graphics, and music files encrypted.
Because new technology like this *never* causes any issues with the system's operation.
No, not in my IT department.
----- Connection reset by beer
... you can hand it to them with a grim smile on your face!
So say we all
1. Use Stolen Template
2. ???
3. Gay!!!!
Take that MPAA....and RIAA...and NSA....and every other person who wants my bits.
Um, out of curiosity, how is this any different than any other form of data storate crypto, when it comes to a civil suit over whether your box's MAC address, etc., is clearly publishing copyrighted material a thousand "friends" you've never met before? Whether you're hiding data through drive-level encryption, or doing it with an app that runs a few layers farther up the stack, you're still going to have to face a court order to divulge the contents if a judge can be reasonably convinced that you're hiding something related to the case at hand. It might be a neutral third party, as is often used, but if you refuse to let someone get to that data, it doesn't really matter which bit of tech is doing the hiding.
The bigger issue is whether a court can make you do it or not (seems to depend on the jurisdiction and the cirumstances), and if they can, what the consequences might be for you telling the judge "screw you."
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Unless you're handing classified information, have employees take home thousands of credit cards on laptops, or thousands of medical records on laptops you're probbably not really the target for a drive like this.
If your company does handle this kind of data (or worse), maybe you should be re-examining your role as a sys-admin or manager. It's not all about making your life easier you know. There are of course risks and costs to maintaining a database of passwords, small performance costs for encrypting/decrypting the HD, and possible incompatibilities. There's also risks and costs associated with someone losing the laptop and the big headlines in the newspaper about how your company now looks like a bunch of ass-hats for losing 200,000 CC #s, 50,000 medical records, etc. Security and administration is about managing risk. If the overall risk is lower with this drive (and the price is right), you do it.
AccountKiller
Encrypting files rather than drive access is preferable to me, because if I forget a password I can still wipe and reuse the drive. Solutions that result in junk hardware are probably ok for some commercial customers, but I'd like to be able to save my gear if things go wrong.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
There was a technique that was described on Slashdot a while ago that allowed you to turn over some crypto keys and it would decode a little bit more of the disk each time. That way, your opponent is never sure you have handed over all the keys and it makes it possible to hand over just enough keys to convince a judge. It would be nice if this drive supported that technique so that you would turn over just the first key if taken to court.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
This is one more step toward owning a computer you no longer control.
n opoly)
It's not about end-user encryption, it's about the OS using encryption in some form to eliminate your personal freedoms.
The price will be right though, so most users won't know or care.
The DRM noose around the average user's neck is being sold like a nice, new necktie. Most users will have one in 3-5 years. Then it is only a matter of tightening the noose. If you want it loosened, pay and pay some more.
Finally, there is no market mechanism so the price of loosening the noose around your neck is made by the producer. (A price maker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Coercive_mo
If you value your personal freedom, you will switch to something freer, then you will tell your friends and help them to do the same. Perhaps a Linux or BSD desktop is a good start.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I think encryption is better done in software, such as with GPG. Then at least we can read the software code, rather than relying on black box technology.
I also am concerned about the DRM implications of this. Could for instance, in the future, the disk perhaps allow Windows to request that an NTFS filesystem be locked and Linux not be allowed to access it? Could this be used by Microsoft to lock open source programs out of reading data from other programs?
Just as the gun manufacturers manufacture guns that are as easily used by psychopaths as they are used by legitimate owners.
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This is actually a very good point.
All of these solutions are mostly aimed at PCs used by users right at the local console, but I could see a lot of good reasons for wanting encryption on a server, or other colocated computer. Or maybe I just want to make sure that my desktop workstation doesn't hang forever after a power outage, waiting for someone to put a password in on its local console.
It would be nice if there was a way to mount one of these drives by giving it a password over a secure networked connection.
I guess the way to do it would be to put the root filesystem (hopefully not containing any sensitive data) on an unencrypted drive/partition, and then letting the machine boot from that, and then prompting for a password when it wants to load the drive or partition that contains user data (/home or whatever you prefer). Maybe you could keep a small solid-state flash drive that would maintain a minimal system, just enough to boot the machine and provide network services, and then from there allow you to mount the hardware-encrypted drive. That wouldn't require you to have two complete drives.
Alternately, maybe one of those drive+flash combo units that they're talking about pushing now, could offer features like that. Keep enough of the system on the flash (unencrypted) to bootstrap the machine to a point where you could safely authenticate remotely, and bring up the encrypted portions of the drive.
On Windows systems that mostly keep the user data on the same drive and partition as the system, I don't see an elegant way to do this. But I guess that's just a reflection that no matter how many ways you try to dress it up, Windows is really designed to be a single-user, locally-operated system, at least in most configurations and common flavors.
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Isn't commercial copyright violation a criminal offense? You can do jail time for it...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Studds fucked a page of the legal age of consent. That doesn't make him a pedophile.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Actually, if they monitor changes to the drive on the sector level, they would see the blocks of the hidden volume changing, which would make no sense if they exist in a section of the (outer) TrueCrypt volume that contain no files. And these changes would be visible on a journalling filesystem. So it's recommended you don't use one.
(this is all in the TrueCrypt FAQ's by the way)