[Macpartners] IS&T seeking community assistance in evaluating hard disk encryption

[Jonathan Hunt]

Good Afternoon,

Based on recent community concerns about exposure of Institute data,  
IS&T is exploring improvements in how MIT's departments, labs and  
centers protect sensitive data.  MIT's Information Technology  
Architecture Group (ITAG) requested IS&T evaluate hard disk  
encryption tools as one way to enhance the protection of sensitive  
data stored on MIT laptops and desktops.

I am leading this pilot project and would like to recruit at least 8  
reasonably tech-savvy pilot testers from outside IS&T to evaluate  
some candidate solutions and ensure we end up with something that  
will work effectively in your departments, labs and centers at MIT.  
The project will last about two months with most communication  
electronically via a wiki and email and a few team meetings during  
the course of the project.

Initially the project team will be evaluating the encryption  
solutions bundled with the operating systems:
1)     Microsoft's Encrypted File System (EFS)
2)     Apple's FileVault

We will need to identify their advantages and pitfalls as potential  
solutions in your environment.  Based on these findings, we may look  
at other third-party commercial solutions, such as PGP Desktop.  Once  
a viable encryption solution is found, IS&T will do further work  
(e.g., documentation, installers) to make it accessible for any  
computer users at MIT.

If you are interested in participating in this project, please  
contact me at jmhunt at mit.edu by August 4, 2006.

If you do not want to participate as a pilot team member, we would  
still value your comments, feedback and suggestions for solutions.  A  
wiki has been set up for the Hard Disk Encryption Evaluation pilot to  
collect test results, feedback and comments in real time throughout  
the project.  Anyone at MIT is welcome to view the wiki pages at:

https://confab.mit.edu/confluence/display/SWEVAL/Hard+Disk+Encryption 
+Evaluation
(requires certificates)

Thanks,
Jon
___________________________________________________
Jonathan McIndoe Hunt     MIT EECS '97 617.253.0172
Manager Software Services
Client Support Services
Information Services & Technology, MIT
http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/software/