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back to article Should all hard drives be encrypted?

Given the origins of computing in the coding and decoding of messages, it’s fair to say that the heritage of encryption is as noteworthy as what we now call IT. Indeed the principles of algorithmic codification of data, and the maths behind them, go back way beyond the illustrious efforts of Alan Turing and his ilk in the Second …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Steve Barnett

    You can't possibly expect a government sleeper, I mean government employee to use GPG or PGP, can you ?

    GPG requires at least three brain cells, which is 50% above the average level. Those who could use their third cell would demand a higher payment rank.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hard disk password?

    Many notebooks and PCs have a BIOS level hard disk password. This password is entered by the user on switch on. The password is encrypted by the BIOS and passed to the hard disk and unlocks it. Unless you know the password, the hard disk cannot be accessed - NO WAY. I see little difference between this and FDE where a boot-time password is required. No one (except the CIA?) is going to take out the hard disk platters to get at the data on them. FDE cannot be broken unless you know the password, equally unlocking the hard disk cannot be broken unless you know the password. This hard disk password technology has been well specified for many years now and is supported by most hard drives. It has no software overhead and adds no complexity once the drive is unlocked. The drive can be moved to another system (same model only usually) and can continue to be used as long as you remember the password. Yet FDE is specified but not hard disk password protection?

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