Encryption!  Just writing the word can send a tingle down your spine.  Who knew you could experience fear, frustration, and expense all because of that  one little word?

On a recent consulting job with a large DC government firm.  I was tasked with deploying ”Pretty Good Protection” (PGP).  I can tell you that I lost a lot of hair working with this encryption product.  I had users complaining about performance.  I hated the interface.  Very clunky and hard to use.  I would have nightmares when it would come to getting recovery keys.   Does it have to be this hard?

Microsoft finally released their version of encryption in Windows Vista, a product  known as “Bit locker”. Bit locker is a nice product as long as you have the hardware chip required in your PC and Windows Vista as the operating system. Let’s talk about Vista  for a minute.  Even with the recent release of Service Pack 2, this product still is a little buggy and Windows 7 is to be released right on its heels.  It might be me, but it seems every third operating system Microsoft releases is a dud.  Remember “Windows Millennium”?  

You may want to investigate “True Crypt” a new Open Source product that shows promise.  It is free (Open Source) and it seems to work fairly well. 

Maybe the encryption world finally has a little competition.  It’s about time.

 — Christian “Mckay” Ririe

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