In today's world, when the time comes to retire an old hard drive, many users wipe the device clean before they kick it to the curb. That's the smart and safe thing to do, mainly because the drive may contain sensitive information. According to Microsoft UK's Nick McGrath, erasing drives before disposal is a thing of the past thanks to Windows Vista's new BitLocker drive encryption technology.
Speaking at Infosecurity 2006, McGrath told the audience, "With Vista and Bitlocker, businesses will be able to throw hard disks away and be sure (they are) secure." Almost daring hackers to try to decrypt a BitLocker-protected drive, McGrath continued, "The technology itself is 100 percent secure--we will not be producing any backdoors." His statement was in response to some accusations that Windows Vista would include backdoors essentially allowing police to decrypt hard drives in order to obtain sensitive information about suspects.
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