John Doue <notwobe@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Vanguard wrote:
>> "Barry Watzman" <WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote in message
>> news:45c4b406$0$9009$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
>>> Re: "The other half of the hash (to decode) was back in the original
>>> laptop. Preventing someone from getting at it, especially by
>>> stealing the drive, is just what that security is for; i.e., unless
>>> the drive is in the original laptop that hashed up the drive's
>>> contents AND you know the password, you will never get at the
>>> decoded contents of the drive."
>>>
>>> I don't think that's correct. This isn't windows,
>>
>> I don't care what OS is on the drive, encrypted or not. The
>> whole-disk encryption is performed in hardware. Half of that
>> support is on the hard drive, the other half is back in the mobo. If the drive wanders off from
>> the mobo that hashed up the drive,
>> that drive cannot be decoded. It is very similar to e-mail
>> encryption: the source (owner of the certificate or the mobo) has
>> the "private" portion and the target (recipient or hard drive) has
>> the "public" portion. Without both, there's no decryption, and the
>> source controls that.
>>> this is an IDE
>>
>> Yep, as I said, this hardware encryption was first provided in ATA-3
>> specification. It is NOT solely implemented on the hard drive alone.
>> Unfortunately it costs to get copies of the ATA specs from
>> http://www.t13.org/ and I really don't need them.
>>
>>> Otherwise, as has happened here, if the computer motherboard dies,
>>> then the drive is lost, and that is beyond secure, it is "data
>>> endangering".
>>
>> Yep, that is what happens. And that is why you MUST do data backups
>> since they won't depend on the private key for the encryption that
>> the mobo has. The backups can either be open in that anyone could
>> restore from them or you would password-protect them, but that
>> password protection is entirely within the backup file so you could
>> use another computer running the same backup program to restore your
>> data because the password was only used to encode the file (i.e.,
>> there is no separation of private and public keys, there is just the
>> one key used to encode the file).

> I am curious to know what the final word is on that issue. Until
> reading your post, I shared Barry's opinion. If you are correct, and
> you seem to know your stuff,

He doesnt, actually. Where the encryption is done is an entirely
separate issue to whether the ATA password can be reentered
for a drive that is moved from one system that supports ATA
passwords to another that also does.

> then I would look twice before passwording a hard-drive.

That should always be done, if only because you
need to be sure that you wont lose the password.