Seagate's Encrypted Hard Drives On Route

[HardOCP News]

Seagate has announced new laptop hard drives with built-in encryption that will make it impossible to read data from the disk or boot the system without authentication.

The hard drives, to be available in laptops made by ASI Computer Technologies, will include a chip that makes it impossible for anyone to read data off the disk, or even boot up a PC, without some form of authentication.

 

[GJSNeptune]

What about data recovery should the drive fail, like DriveSavers?

 

[THRESHIN]

i wonder if this will give the RIAA a hard time?

 

[GJSNeptune]

Naw, they'll just sue Seagate for some firivolous reason. Maybe get the EU to sue as well.

 

[bbz_Ghost]

Damn, this could turn into a nightmare for data recovery services, it really could. I could care less about DRM, content protection, copyright issues, theft, etc... but if a customer has some legitimate and highly valued data that needs recovering, ugh. I don't even want to think about the ramifications with such hardware.

 

[Martyr]

dont keep valuable info on laptops, nice safe happy servers for that

 

[rush24t3]

Prepare for threads in the hardware forum, "Hay guyz i forgot my password how do i get my stuff off my Crypto 9000 Drive?", followed by rants on Seagate, Vista, and why Mac OS sux when someone tells them they're screwed.

 

[No.6]

Relevant issues:

- What sort of encryption? There's no such thing as "impossible for anyone to read data" with encryption. "Impossible to read data" occurs only when you've put a 12ga slug through the HDD and lit the pieces on fire.

- Who has key escrow, if anyone?

 

[Nemesis999]

Relevant issues:

- What sort of encryption? There's no such thing as "impossible for anyone to read data" with encryption. "Impossible to read data" occurs only when you've put a 12ga slug through the HDD and lit the pieces on fire.

Impossible to read within a reasonable amount of time.

Happy?