New State Laws Could Make Encryption Widespread

New laws that took effect in Nevada on Oct. 1 and will kick in on Jan. 1 in Massachusetts may effectively mandate encryption for companies' hard drives, portable devices, and data transmissions. The laws will be binding on any organization that maintains personal information about residents of the two states. (Washington and Michigan are considering similar legislation.) Nevada's law deals mostly with transmitted information and Massachusetts's emphasizes stored information. Between them the two laws should put more of a dent into lax security practices than widespread laws requiring customer notification of data breaches have done. (Such laws are on the books in 40 states and by one estimate have reduced identity theft by 2%.) Here are a couple of legal takes on the impact of the new laws.

Comments

Okay whew

[Anonymous Coward]

Only laptops. I was worried that we would have to encrypt our entire database.

Re:Okay whew

[JayAitch]

Thanks I almost forwarded this article to my boss. He would have had a heart attack.

mofo.com?

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of n00b do you think I am? Like I'm really going to click through a link to mofo.com.

Jesus.

Am I the only one...

[scrod98]

...who thought that the link to MOFO.com would be some kind of Samuel L. Jackson fan site and not a law office?

Re:You know why encryption isn't used more often?

[Dr_Barnowl]

click-click

click

<password><enter>

Damn, that was cryptic. Oh, wait.

TrueCrypt file volume. I now have a nice safe drive U:

Full disk encryption just prompts you for the password or smartcard+PIN at boot time.

Re:You Un-American *tards!

[Dr_Barnowl]

Millenium Development Goals :

• End Poverty and Hunger
• Universal Education
• Gender Equality
• Child Health
• Maternal Health
• Combat HIV/AIDS
• Environmental Sustainability
• Global Partnership

Yes, you're right, that is un-American.