File-based TPM security? What use is CSS 8?

[albo]

Hi Folks,

My t43 used to be able to encrypt on a file-by-file basis, using the TPM security chip. I liked this feature alot, but it made my machine bsod back in the day.

I now have a clean install of XP, and just installed CSS 8. Seems that now, the only way to encrypt files via the TPM is with Ultimaco, and that's just in a partition. Is the file-based encryption gone forever?

Perhaps there's a different software-based utility for file-by-file encryption I could use?

Seems like, if you're not going to use the password manager (i already use SplashID which syncs with my palm), that the TPM doesn't have too much use, eh?

Thanks,
Allie

[mattster]

They got rid of File & Folder encryption a long while back. I worked on CSS when it had that functionality and it caused more problems for more customers. It was replaced with the Utimaco stuff, which is decent.

It's a shame there is no way for TrueCrypt, etc. to interact with the TPM. That is definitely a little bit more secure than just software encryption alone.

Matt

[albo]

thanks matt. yeah, i was getting BSOD's like crazy due to the TPM stuff back a few years ago. i was hoping they had fixed it up, but sounds like they just ditched it instead.

other than the increased security, i was thinking that TPM encryption might be faster and lighter on the system than software-based encryption, but not sure if that was the case. i'm not sure if the TPM chip was performing on-the-fly decryption from the harddrive, or was just providing the keys to do so. Well, moot now, anyway.

thanks,
allie

[krcmd]

I'm using CSS 5.41

What's on the hard disk and what's on the chip?

thanks

[mattster]

The chip contains the base encryption algorithm and not much else. All of your data physically resides on the hard drive.

[davidspalding]

Just my two cents..... I've held back on updating CSS on my T43, partly due to all the complaints I read here about CSS and Fingerprint Manager issues, things not working, blah blah blah. Think I'm still on 6-something with no complaints (T43 isn't with me at the moment).

Of course, I presume we all know that XP can "encrypt" files as an attribute. I do that in a few places with little or no faith that it's doing any good. (How: do ALT+ENTER on a file or folder, and under advanced properties, select the encryption option. TweakUI can change the display color to something a little more demonstrative than the default.)