Password Poll

[Tõnis]

Do you use Supervisor, P/O, and/or HDD passwords? Is your experience with the use of these passwords trouble free? I left out the option of "I use passwords and don't care if there are problems," because that would not be an option for me. I want to use passwords, but I'm afraid of SNAFU's.

[RealBlackStuff]

The only secure PW is a Hard Disk password, but only on IBM and Hitachi Hard Disks.
I don't bother with any, because my laptops never leave the house.

[killer]

My HDD has a password and I use a power on password. The reason is that, although these days I rarely remove my machine from home, it only takes a sneak thief when, for example, I am in the garden and all is lost. If a thief cannot use the machine because of passwords then there is a chance I'll get it back.

[virge]

At a minimum I use a HDD password. I figure if someone steals my laptop, the cost of removing the password is more than the value of the drive so it should be pretty secure.

One point-- never use the same password for different security levels. I.e. You don't someone to extract your supervisor password (relatively easy) and then proceed to use it to unlock your HDD.

[dsvochak]

Supervisor, pop and hard drive password. I carry the machine around and much of the data is privileged.

I don't use passwords because of potential problems

Other than forgetting the password, what potential problems are there?

[rkawakami]

I use some of them and have never had a problem.

For the systems which routinely leave the house with me (generally, T23s - no surprise there, huh?? ), I have enabled both the hard drive and supervisor passwords. I don't bother with the power on password; there's really not much to be gained if it's enabled. And I totally agree with virge: never, ever use the same password for the HDP and SVP. That's like using the same key for your house, car, work, safety deposit box, etc. If any one of them is ever cracked, then everything is compromised.

Protecting the BIOS with an SVP also means that somebody can't put one on there without my knowledge - sometimes the foolish act of a practical joker. Yes, I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that a random bit flip inside the system's memory would alter the SVP but it's an occurrence that I'm willing to gamble on. Non-volatile memories are never absolutely 100% reliable, but I'd say that the 0.0001% (or 1-in-a-million) chance of things going wrong is fairly safe.

Aside: I have a work-provided Dell Latitude D520 with 2.5GB of RAM. I also bring my favorite personal T23 (maxed out 2647-HNU) to the office. I power up both at the same time. The T23 has an HDP. I can type in the password and bring the T23 out of hibernation and get to the desktop before the Dell (with no boot or HD password) can even display the CTRL-ALT-DEL login prompt (it's also coming out of hibernation). Of course the Dell is probably busy establishing all of the network connections with our internal servers but it also has Kaspersky on it.

[dr_st]

I don't use any passwords on any of my personal machines, because I have nothing sensitive to protect on them, and if stolen (unlikely), then the last thing the thief is gonna want is the data on my hard drive.

The company I work at requres hard drive password to be used, because the corporate laptops do have sensitive data on them, quite often. So I've been using the hard drive password for over 2 years now, and haven't had a single hiccup.

[mattbiernat]

i don't use password of any kind because i don't care

[Tõnis]

Thanks, all, for the informative replies and great advice so far. I decided to give passwords a try. I do have the Hitachi hard disk RBS mentioned, and I enabled the Supervisor and both Master+User HDD passwords. I used different passwords for all three, as virge suggested. (I skipped the P/O password for now.) Ray makes a convincing argument for the Supervisor password. I certainly wouldn't want to find out some day that someone else made himself Supervisor of my system! I do however wish there was a way to have the machine prompt for the HDD password on resuming from system standby, but it doesn't seem to work that way. Mine just goes to the Windows Welcome Screen and prompts me to enter my Windows user password.

Tõnis

[rkawakami]

Your observation about the hard drive password not being asked when resuming from standby (or hibernation) is correct. At least for the TP systems I've used and set passwords on (see .sig). The only time you will get asked for the HDP is from a cold boot and perhaps if you're hot plugging in a password-protected drive in an Ultrabay adapter. I don't believe that I've ever tried that before....

[goofyGAguy]

You forgot option number 4---

" I don't use passwords because I don't want to be bothered. "

[dr_st]

Your observation about the hard drive password not being asked when resuming from standby (or hibernation) is correct. At least for the TP systems I've used and set passwords on (see .sig).

I have a T60 and it does ask for password when resuming from hibernation, or when first turning the laptop on, but not when doing a "restart" from Windows.

[RealBlackStuff]

@ dr_st
But that's a Windows setting...

[dr_st]

@ dr_st
But that's a Windows setting...

What is a Windows setting?

I am talking about the BIOS HDD password...

[rkawakami]

Your observation about the hard drive password not being asked when resuming from standby (or hibernation) is correct. At least for the TP systems I've used and set passwords on (see .sig). The only time you will get asked for the HDP is from a cold boot and perhaps if you're hot plugging in a password-protected drive in an Ultrabay adapter. I don't believe that I've ever tried that before....

Ah, disregard what I wrote earlier about the HDP and hibernation... this is what happens when you read a post real quick, bang out a response (without thinking) and then get called away from your desk at work.

The hard drive password WILL be required when the system is brought out of hibernation, same as if you powered up the system after having shut it down completely before.

[RealBlackStuff]

Also a quick reader...
The password I meant, is the one that can be 'set' in the Display Properties for re-activating if the screen saver is ON.

[Tõnis]

Well, I'll cast my vote now, too. I use passwords and never had a problem.

And having had sufficient time to experiment, I, too, can see how the machine doesn't require the HDD password on a reboot, only on the cold start or resume from hibernation. Thanks again, everyone.

Tõnis