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Story: Vista will force need for network forensics

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Vista encryption is *optional*

An interesting article, and an interesting idea. Who knows, in fact, where the next "big thing" in IT is going to come from - you could be right. Or, it could be something entirely different.

One thing that this article suggests is that encryption in Vista is turned on "by default." Actually, it is not. In fact, it is not even available in most versions of Vista. Vista is available in five SKUs, only two of which support encryption (a feature known as "BitLocker", or "BitLocker Drive Encryption" - BDE). Vista Home Basic, Media Edition, and Business *do not* support BDE. Vista Enterprise and Ultimate - the two more expensive editions - do support BDE.

Also, encryption is not turned on by default. An important step during encryption involves defining the encryption and decryption keys. This cannot be done by default by someone other than the owner of the system. If it could, then that someone else would be able to gain access to the secure data - exactly what is trying to be controlled.

So - an interesting idea, that Network Forensics is the next big thing. We shall see.

Best,
Paul Yao
Utimaco Safeware, AG

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