REQUEST FOR OPINIONS

[Owen Lewis]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Quentin Campbell" <Q.G.Campbell@newcastle.ac.uk>
To: <ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk>
Sent: 31 August 2000 13:26
Subject: RE: REQUEST FOR OPINIONS


> On Thu, 31 Aug 2000 steve.mcmahon@bristol-west.co.uk wrote:
>
> > I believe someone is looking for a laptop encryption product. My first
> > suggestion is to try SafeBoot which provides whole disk encryption
> > transparent to the user. > It does not seem to offer much security if
the encrypted disk can be
> recovered in the absence of a password?
>
> This may be a good idea for laptops owned by an organisation but seems a
> bad idea for an individually owned one which may be seized by a "hostile"
> body.
>
> I would have thought that a laptop used for secure communications should
> not be used as a general purpsose work station. Then it can be made
> irrecoverable; that is, you have to replace/rebuild the HDD from scratch
> and re-install the applications.

A contender might be the StopLock V product from PC Security Ltd.

Also consider those laptops (e.g. IBM  Thinkpads) that have a removable HDD.
This is a neat solution to using a single platform for sensitive and routine
work where the latter requires multiple or even unrestricted access to the
platform.

Owen