🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi!

Again... apologies for lumping replies together, but my Usenet access is via
email ( :-{ )....

PC Protection (various authors)
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A sticky subject at the best of times.... Where I work we deal with a fair
degree of "hush hush" stuff (I could tell you more, but then I'd have to
kill you :-) ) and use "bog standard" PCs, hardly an ideal situation.
Stuff that is classified above the lowest level is *never* stored on the
LAN (Novell) [well, to be honest, print files are, but they (hopefully)
disappear fairly rapidly and get overwritten quickly], and is stored either
on floppies or Bernoulli disks that are locked up.  We are *fairly* good
at taking precautions when using floppies; all .TMP, .LZH, .SWP etc etc
are undeleted and wiped (using Norton WipeFile, which complies with both
MoD and DoD specs).  However, this is far from ideal; *we* have to work
out what files are used by apps and where they are stored, and people are
sloppy (*SIGH*).  This provides a satisfactory level of security, assuming
that people follow the procedures (satisfactory for the relevant authorities
at least).

Vesselin made some very valid comments about software security and its
problems -- this boils down to a problem well known to the ATM community:
its all very well the user authenticating themselves to the ATM, but how
does the ATM authenticate itself to the user?? (the Mafia and others have
exploited this problem in the past to snarf cards).  There is one product
I have seen that may help to get round (or at least reduce) the problem,
which is a smartcard that is read by a normal disk drive.  Any thoughts??
I agree that for any *real* security, hardware (and *trusted* hardware) is
required.

Please don't post flames about how our security could be bypassed - I know,
I've told the boss..... It boils down to people problems, the same sort of
people who forget to wipe files are going to leave cabinets open or 
classified docs lying around [I've found that hiding them in their desk
draw is an effective deterrent :-)].

PC Encryption hardware
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In <1992Oct21.103037.27828...>, Erwin Geiger was asking about PC encryption
hardware.  The following companies offer a range of products that may fit
the bill, mainly based around DES and RSA:

Airtech Computer Security, +44 844 201800.  Also have an "Affiliate"
company in the US, Pyramid Development Corp, (203) 257 4223

Racal Datacom Inc, (305) 8461601.  Do a wide range of kit, including a neat
calculator password thingy called WatchWord.  They produce a range of PC
crds (both MCA and EISA) which support a variety of encryption.  

Hope these are of use!!


Well, CUL!

NikB.

      There are only two phrases you need to know in any language:
       "Give me a beer" and "Dont shoot me, I'm a tourist"