Vista's BitLocker Encryption: All It's Cracked Up to Be?

When Microsoft announced that Windows Vista was going to be available in multiple editions, curiosity turned toward the higher-end versions of Vista targeted at corporate environments (Vista Enterprise) and enthusiasts (Vista Ultimate). Among the features in these high-end editions is BitLocker Drive Encryption, which Microsoft included to address "the theft or unwanted disclosure of data made available through physical loss of computer devices."

Say what?

In plain language, BitLocker is an on-disk encryption system that encrypts the computer's boot drive, making the system data on it unreadable to unauthorized users -- someone who's just made off with your laptop at the airport, for example. Without a boot key -- either a manually entered PIN, a USB flash drive or a secure module on the PC itself -- everything on a BitLocker-encrypted drive is indistinguishable from random data.