Questions about using BitLocker Drive Encryption

This is the second part of Serdar's two-part series on Windows Vista's BitLocker.

BitLocker Drive Encryption, the security feature touted in Windows Vista, is sparking controversy. Some of the furor is predicated on misinformation about what BitLocker really is or how it is to be used, or how it might be possible to perform an end-run around it.

BitLocker in competition

Another widely asked question about BitLocker is how it compares to existing encryption products, both commercial and free. WinMagic Inc.'s SecureDoc is one example of a Windows product that supports full-system encryption, including the OS partition, and that also supports other verification mechanisms such as smart cards. SecureDoc is used extensively. More than 500,000 licenses have been sold worldwide, according to the company. Administrators may want to balance the per-license cost of SecureDoc ($150 per seat, with volume discounts) against the cost of upgrading to Vista. If Vista upgrades are planned and they work out to be cheaper overall, BitLocker may be the better deal. People looking to encrypt specific systems now, however, can benefit from SecureDoc.

Another product that is popular is TrueCrypt. I've worked with TrueCrypt a fair amount, and it has one feature that distinguishes it heavily from BitLocker: Full volumes encrypted with it are indistinguishable from random data

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, and there is no volume signature on an unencrypted volume. By contrast, BitLocker volumes can be easily detected, as they have a distinct signature. To that end, TrueCrypt is more useful for encrypting non-system data, such as auxiliary or external drives.

One possible way to use TrueCrypt (or another file-and-partition product) for creating an encrypted OS partition would be to create a system volume for a virtual PC on an encrypted drive and use that. This is perfectly feasible (in fact, I've done it myself), but it requires the presence of virtual machine software in the first place.

Because BitLocker is a Vista-exclusive product designed to meet a very specific need — full-disk encryption for the Windows OS partition — the odds of it displacing existing general-purpose or full-disk encryption solutions are pretty low. But as Vista becomes the version of Windows over the next several years, BitLocker ought to become more attractive as a standard-issue way to secure laptops and desktops -- either with or without the additional expense of TPM hardware.

Read the first half of this tip, End-to-end encryption for Windows Vista systems: BitLocker.

About the author:Serdar Yegulalp is editor of the Windows Power Users Newsletter. Check it out for the latest advice and musings on the world of Windows network administrators -- and please share your thoughts as well!

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