Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-sdd!craigb
From: craigb@hp-sdd.hp.com (Craig Bosworth)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Preventing Floppy Boots
Summary: Lattice SecretDisk did it.
Message-ID: <2411@hp-sdd.hp.com>
Date: 16 Aug 89 00:38:56 GMT
References: <1989Aug15.183532.27998@ee.rochester.edu>
Sender: news@hp-sdd.hp.com
Reply-To: craigb@hp-sdd.hp.com (Craig Bosworth)
Distribution: na
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, San Diego Division
Lines: 28

Lattice used to (still does?) make a package called SecretDisk that more or
less did what you're talking about.

What they did was write a block device driver for virtual disk drives.  The
virtual drives (SecretDisks) can only be acccessed after giving the driver
the correct password.  Once the SecretDisks are installed and accessed, they
look like regular old DOS disks.

The SecretDisks are represented in the system as large hidden files in which the
data is encrypted.

Running SecretDisk caused no performance or compatability problems on my Zenith
151.

You can't make the entire hard disk inaccessable:  boot code, DOS, and the
SecretDisk driver have to be unencrypted, but you could protect everything
else.  Also, you could still boot the PC from a floppy, but without running
the driver and entering the passwords, none of the SecretDisk data was useable
(although it was destroyable:  delete and overwrite the hidden encrypted data
files).

BOS

-- 
Craig Bosworth  (619) 592-8609           16399 West Bernardo Drive
Hewlett-Packard, San Diego Division      San Diego, CA  92127-1899
UUCP     : {hplabs|nosc|hpfcla|ucsd}!hp-sdd!craigb
Internet : craigb%hp-sdd@hp-sde.sde.hp.com (or @nosc.mil, @ucsd.edu)