[FDE] BitLocker feedback?

[Saqib Ali]

Here is what Gartner has to say about BitLocker:
http://vista.blog.gartner.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1875

My thoughts:
I highly doubt that BitLocker will ever be widely implemented
anywhere. It will be like EFS which even Microsoft's security group
doesn't use (they use Winzip AES). Here are my reasons for the above
statement:

1) BitLocker is only supported on Windows Vista Ultimate. Ultimate
edition is pricey and will not be used by most businesses.
2) Vista requires latest and greatest hardware, which is not the case
at most of the shops.
3) There exists plethora of alternative, which are cheap, support
multiple platforms/OS and works well with the existing older hardware.
4) New computers will start shipping with Seagate's Momentus FDE.2 HDD
which has a hardware chip that performs the encryption, thus relieving
the CPU.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/laptops/momentus/momentus_5400_fde.2/


On 1/29/07, Sable Cantus <jcantus at exchange.calstatela.edu> wrote:
> Have any of you implemented bitlocker in your test or IT
> environments?  I began last week and it seems that there are plenty
> of MS paperwork about the importance of FDE, etc. but not a lot of
> details about the technology or how it stacks up with other
> encryption technologies.  Specifically: PGP and Utimaco.