you will have to Out live this Hard drive to crack the code

[TeXan]

TiVo Awarded Patent For Password That Is So Hard To Guess It Will Outlive Your Hard Drive


“An authentication system for securing information within a disk drive to be read and written to only by a specific host computer such that it is difficult or impossible to access the drive by any system other than a designated host is disclosed. While the invention is similar in intent to a password scheme, it significantly more secure. The invention thus provides a secure environment for important information stored within a disk drive. The information can only be accessed by a host if the host can respond to random challenges asked by the disk drive. The host’s responses are generated using a cryptography chip processing a specific algorithm. This technique allows the disk drive and the host to communicate using a coded security system where attempts to break the code and choose the correct password take longer to learn than the useful life of the disk drive itself.”

http://davisfreeberg.com/2007/05/10/tiv ... ard-drive/

[TeXan]

found this guys pretty true

This really has nothing to do with security, at least the kind of security that benefits TiVo owners. The only conceivable attack it might prevent is someone breaking into your home, opening up your DVR, and stealing the hard drive while leaving the rest of the $600 machine behind.

If you prevent me from accessing the hard drive I paid for, inside a box I own, that doesn’t benefit me. It might benefit TiVo, who wants me to buy new features from them instead of installing them myself. Or it might benefit Big Content, who wants me to buy shows on DVD instead of archiving my own recordings. But it sure doesn’t do anything for me.

[joe]

it's not really news to make something hard to encrypt, just give it a long key. a 100000000 bit key would take billions of years to break

[Delinquent]

yea but if you use billions of computers, it'll only take one year. and that's assuming it's the LAST you check.

that's the problem, it's still breakable.

/.Delinquent

[joe]

ok then add 3 more zeros to the bit length. problem solved.

[MongoTheMad]

I think its just a new challenge for hackers.

Harddisk: "Hey, you broke that now try to break me. Oh wait, I am hard to break "
Hacker: "Just you wait..."

[Cc_Hairy]

The NSA geeks will get to this after their room full of quantum computers crunching the NYT sudoku puzzle can be retasked.