New with Vista is an encryption program called BitLocker.  Before you go hiding all of your secrets and guilty pleasures in a BitLocker protected folder, you might want to take a careful read of this story at The Register.  It turns out 2 of the 3 protection schemes won’t even work, as there are not really any motherboards currently for sale with a TPM compatible BIOS.  XP’s encryption never managed to stop anyone determined to get at the data, and neither will Vista.  That isn’t all bad news though, it does mean law enforcement can continue to be able to examine computers for evidence of certain types of crime … and there’s is no word on whether the RIAA will be able to figure out a way to get in.

“For one thing, in two of its three modes of operation BitLocker requires a cryptographic hardware chip called a Trusted Platform Module and a compatible BIOS. These chips are yet to become widely available much less deployed. The third mode requires a user to insert a USB device that contains a startup key in order to boot the protected OS.

That means law enforcement officers need to get into the habit of seizing USB keys as well as PCs in the course of conducting a raid. Brian Karney, director of product marketing at Guidance Software, said the computer forensics firm had worked with Microsoft on BitLocker and that it knew of “no backdoors”.”

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