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Seagate To Encrypt Data On Hard Drives
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Oct 30, 2006 02:35 PM
from the great-another-password-to-remember dept.
from the great-another-password-to-remember dept.
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."
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Hardware: Seagate Ships World's Most Secure Hard Drive 148 comments
An anonymous reader writes to let us know that after two years Seagate is finally shipping its full-disk encryption product, and you can get your hands on it in a laptop from system vendor ASI.
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No back doors? (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
To meet any reasonsable security policy one would need a "yes" to each of the questions: Is the source code for the encryption routines provided? Is a complete API provided? And can the owner of the hardware verifiably replace every digital key in the device?
If the answer to any of these is no
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:No back doors? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:No back doors? (Score:5, Informative)
truecrypt [truecrypt.org] allows you to create a double encrypted volume. 2 passphrases. 1 - lets your torturers into a set of incriminating looking but innocent files, the other lets you into the real files. there is NO WAY to detect or extract the real files from the planted files.
look innocent to the coppers while you continue to hide the goodies.
looks even better if you have other things that use the same planted password and are your tax info
Parent
Re:No back doors? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Good thing people have backup systems in case their mobile computer gets stolen or faces some other mishap.
Really, if you've got valuable enough data to be encrypting it, you'd be nuts to not have it properly backed up as well. Though I guess bad decisions happen...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Remote access *is* a consideration. (Score:3, Interesting)
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 conne
Not in my IT department! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
And maybe you don't need it.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Not in my IT department! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
1. I've seen all sorts of problems with encrypting certain system files on a hard drive. Perhaps that's because the encryption has been software based, but key system files seem to have problems when encrypted.
2. How will you enforce strong passwords? How will you enforce password change policies? Can you even change the password once it has been set? If the user and IT agree on a passowrd, can we be sure tha
Re:Not in my IT department! (Score:4, Insightful)
What? Sorry if that's the impression you got, I must have mis-typed. We aren't trying to keep auditors out of the files, we are trying to keep thieves out of the files. We've had laptops stolen while our auditors were out in the field before. The last thing we want is for our client's data to find its way into the wild. If we were working on your tax return, wouldn't you prefer that *if* it was copied to a laptop HD, that the laptop HD be encrypted? Protecting information if very important to us.
Encryption wouldn't have helped cover up Enron. Even if your drives were 100% encrypted, you still have paper copied the Feds could go after. Even if you shred all your paper (which would look very fishy, even in a 'paperless office'), you still have backup tapes. And if every single one of your backup tapes were encrypted AND you just happen to have 'forgot' the password to the tapes as well... well, I think the judge will have you for obstruction at that point.
Trust me.. accountants aren't the most tech savvy individuals. They just do their job and get the hell outta here. Enron and AA had some bad people at the top. A few bad apples which hurt a lot of very good people. They may have been very good at fudging some numbers, but when it comes to "tech savvy'ness".... well, there's a reason that in all the scandle movies.. the only things accounts know how to do is shred paper.
Parent
Next time RIAA asks your HD... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you actually care about protection from governments, legal actions from private parties, or malicious foreign enti
Progressive decoding (Score:3, Interesting)
Roadmap To DRM'd PC (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Troubling implications (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
trolls? (Score:3, Funny)
2. ???
3. Gay!!!!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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 ord
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)