REQUEST FOR OPINIONS

[Aulis Kinnari]

You may try SafeGuard Easy from Utimaco Safeware AG (Germany). They have also
office in England. Utimaco Safeware Ltd.
      Hamilton House.  III Marlowes.  GB-Hemel Hempstead HERTS.HP1, 1BB.   Tel.:
+44.1442.230.030
      Fax: +44.1442.230.663 .  EMail: paul.mcdermott@utimaco.de

Their Website:  http://www.utimaco.de/  with a link to their UK website:
http://www.utimaco.de/uk/index.htm. The main information can be found
in their Germany website (also in english).

SafeGuard Easy  encrypts the hard disk and securely authenticates the user
before  the operating system is started (pre-boot authentication).
Neither passwords nor keys are stored on the PC's hard  disk. An attacker does
not have a chance to find out about these information.

 SafeGuard Easy supports the operating systems OS/2, MS-DOS, Windows 3.x,
Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT4 and Windows 2000.

It utilises  universally recognized strong algorithms e.g. IDEA 128 bit,
BLOWFISH 256 bit.

SafeGuard Easy encrypts the hard disk completely or partially - independently of
 the used file system (e.g. NTFS, FAT etc).
An attacker can by no means gain access to the stored data, even not if he
removes or copies  the hard disk.

Cheers

Aulis Kinnari

e-mail      AKI@statoil.com
PHONE: +47 51 99 93 26     Statoil, Information Technology, Operations Centre,IT
 Userequipment
FAX:   +47 51 99 85 85     N-4035 Stavanger, Norway
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"Any opinions expressed above are mine only."





From:  Quentin Campbell <Q.G.Campbell@newcastle.ac.uk>@maillist.ox.ac.uk on
       31.08.2000 13:26

Please respond to ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk

Sent by:  owner-ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk


To:    ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk
cc:     (bcc: Aulis Kinnari)

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. The password is entered at Boot level (and there
> are various password strength settings), therefore the whole disk
> including OS is encrypted. There is also an Admin recovery system via a
> help desk if the password is forgotten which is laptop specific and works
> quite well in practice.  I have just joined this mailing list and seem to
> be coming in at the half-way point of this thread so apologise if this has
> come up before or I have missed the mark completely.
> I can supply more details if required.

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.

Quentin
--
PHONE: +44 191 222 8209     Computing Service, University of Newcastle
FAX:   +44 191 222 8765     Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, NE1 7RU.
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"Any opinions expressed above are mine. The University can get its own."