Momentus 5400 FDE.2: HDD with embedded encrypting system from Seagate

Many users ignore safety of their data. Most of them are well protected against harmful software: they have anti-virus and firewall. But there are few who thinks about protection from physical stealing. And here comes a solution - new Seagate HDD    Momentus 5400 FDE.2

There are two possible dangers: losing of data and information leakage. If hard drive is broken, data stored on it will be lost. If you make backups regularly, actual damage to the data will be minimal. But if you cannot physically protect storage device or whole system, your data may be compromised, which means unauthorized users will have access to your information.

Most troublesome are mobile users. When they work on PC's inside corporate building data usually stored on unified file servers or local discs. Local security policy and IT-infrastructure are usually enough to provide maximum data security. It could be compromised only in case of breach in IT-infrastructure or if someone will physically steal disc drive or copy data via direct access.

You know some standard methods of protection: BIOS password, Windows authentication and so on. But is good only for keeping your kids from playing on your PC while you are absent.

The only effective mean of protection is a hardware one. Seagate used new Trusted Platform Module in it's Momentus HDD. But you'll need special software all the same.

All models of Momentus series are represented by most popular modifications of  80, 120 and 160 Gb. It is not as fast as leaders such as Spinpoint M5 (Samsung), Hitachi Travelstar 5K250 or new Momentus 5400.4, but encrypting almost does not affects speed.

It is not supported by Windows Vista for now so you'll have to use Windows SP Home or Professional. To activate encrypting procedures you have to install FinallySecure package by Secude. After that you receive small second partition where you can store your most valuable information. To access it you'll have to enter login and password. When connected to other system this partition renders empty.

Technorati Tags: HDD,Seagate,Security,Windows,Samsung,Hitachi,PC,data storage

Vista security spec 'longest suicide note in history'

by Andrew Thomas

VISTA'S CONTENT PROTECTION specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history, claims a new and detailed report from the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

"Peter Gutmann's report describes the pernicious DRM built into Vista and required by MS for approval of hardware and drivers," said INQ reader Brad Steffler, MD, who brought the report to our attention. "As a physician who uses PCs for image review before I perform surgery, this situation is intolerable. It is also intolerable for me as a medical school professor as I will have to switch to a MAC or a Linux PC. These draconian dicta just might kill the PC as we know it."

But this isn't just a typical anti-Microsoft rant. Gutmann's report runs to 6,000 words and contains hardly any FSF-style juvenile invective.

"Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to provide content protection for so-called "premium content", typically HD data from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources. Providing this protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost," says Gutmann on his homepage.

"These issues affect not only users of Vista but the entire PC industry, since the effects of the protection measures extend to cover all hardware and software that will ever come into contact with Vista, even if it's not used directly with Vista (for example hardware in a Macintosh computer or on a Linux server). This document analyses the cost involved in Vista's content protection, and the collateral damage that this incurs throughout the computer industry."

He also claims that Vista's content protection will 'have to violate the laws of physics if it is to work'.

I'm not going to comment on the details of the report and its implications but merely suggest that you read it for yourselves and come to your own conclusions. I'd also venture to suggest that Microsoft might want to comment on Gutmann's work.

(c) www.theinquirer.net

Microsoft applies for "RSS patent"

by Jeremy Reimer

Late last week, right before the Christmas season began, Microsoft filed a patent related to using RSS services inside a web browser and throughout an operating system. The patent was filed with the United States Patent Office (USPTO) by Microsoft employee Amar S. Gandhi, with seven other names on the patent.

Is Microsoft trying to patent RSS technology as a whole or RSS readers in specific, as has been reported elsewhere? Not really. The patent itself makes no claims over the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) specification itself. Rather, the patent describes a way for an operating system to centrally manage RSS subscriptions via an API which can be used by other applications to access and/or modify the subscription data.

The patent itself describes the problem this is aimed at, in more detail: "Each RSS application will typically have its own list of subscriptions. When the list of subscriptions is small, it is fairly easy for a user to enter and manage those subscriptions across the different applications. As the list of subscriptions grows, however, management of the subscriptions in connection with each of these different RSS-enabled applications becomes very difficult. Thus, it is very easy for subscription lists to become unsynchronized."

In addition, the API can be used within applications to publish stories directly to a blog or other content-managed web site. In theory, this allows developers to quickly add RSS support to their own applications via the API.

The Microsoft RSS Team blog has new entries responding to concerns that the patent is too broad. "First these patents describe specific ways to improve the RSS end-user and developer experience (which we believe are valuable and innovative contributions)—they do not constitute a claim that Microsoft invented RSS." The blog goes on to mention that Microsoft has already released various Atom and RSS extensions under a Creative Commons license, and points out that both Google and Apple have applied for RSS-related patents in the past.

Still, because Microsoft is Microsoft, any move they make in the legal and patent sphere is bound to come under intense scrutiny. The company has a culture of applying for as many patents as possible (one program manager I talked to said his higher-ups were always suggesting he patent everything he could). Many of these are "defensive patents" designed to prevent Microsoft from being sued by other patent-holding companies. However, the issue of software patents in general is still a very contentious one, with some people believing that they should not exist at all.

(c) www.arstechnica.com

MS' New MultiPoint Lets Many Mice Work on a PC

Microsoft has plans to commercialize a technology originally developed for schools in India to allow multiple mice to work with one PC. Originally this technology was to help in schools with many more children than PCs. Using the software you can connect several mice to the USB port of one computer. The technology is called MultiPoint and while it uses mice now, MS is working on allowing multiple keyboards and other peripherals to be used on one system at once as well, hence the MultiPoint moniker rather than MultiMouse. With this technology each user sees the same thing on screen; they just have their own input device.

[original post: www.everythingusb.com]