In Through The Out Door

In its basic mode, an attacker can still access the data on the drive by guessing the user’s password, but would not be able to get at the drive by booting the disk up using another operating system, or removing the drive and attaching it to another computer.There are several modes for BitLocker…. But if you can force users to attach it to their keychains — remember that you only need the key to boot the computer, not to operate the computer — and convince them to go through the trouble of sticking it in their computer every time they boot, then you’ll get a higher level of security.There is a recovery key: optional but strongly encouraged…. There are ways for an administrator to set group policy settings mandating this key.There aren’t any back doors for the police, though.You can get BitLocker to work in systems without a TPM, but it’s kludgy…. And it only will work on some hardware: because BItLocker starts running before any device drivers are loaded, the BIOS must recognize USB drives in order for BitLocker to work.Encryption particulars: The default data encryption algorithm is AES-128-CBC with an additional diffuser…. You still won’t be able to share any files on your C drive between operating systems, but you will be able to share files on any other drive.The problem is that it’s impossible to distinguish between a legitimate dual boot system and an attacker trying to use another OS — whether Linux or another instance of Vista — to get at the volume.BitLocker is not a panacea.

John Dvorak’s eight signs MS is dead in the water:John Dvorak has written an opinion piece on why he believes Microsoft is dead in the water. He discusses Vista, Office 2007, MSN and MSN search, the Xbox 360, Pad-based computing, .Net, and Microsofts obsession with Google.