US 2003/0070083 A1 · Method and device for encryption/decryption of data on mass storage device

Abstract

The present invention provides a method and device performing encryption/decryption of data on a mass storage media. A plurality of different encryption/decryption algorithms with associated keys can be utilised on different storage areas of the media, such as blocks/sectors on a hard disk drive, thereby increasing the security of the data significantly. In addition, the present invention provides a method and device that combines said keys with random numbers for a further increase of the security of the data. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the block/sector number is used to select an algorithm with associated key and random number. The present invention can also be utilised to encrypt/decrypt e-mails, networking traffic etc. and other types of electronic data. In addition, said device provides an authentication session when booting a computer from a hard disk drive, and even be used to select a certain operating system and/or environment associated with a certain key carrier by changing the Master Boot Record of the disk system.

Claims36

Dependent claims

Method for encryption (enciphering, scrambling)/decryption (deciphering, descrambling) of data items transferred to or from a mass storage media, where the mass storage media comprises physically addressable areas, wherein the method comprises the steps of:

provide a plurality of encryption/decryption algorithms with associated encryption/decryption keys;
select one and use said one of said plurality of encryption/decryption algorithms with said associated key on a data item to be transferred to or from an address on the mass storage media, where the selection of said algorithm and said associated key is based on at least two physical addresses defining an upper and lower address limit of a span of addressable area enclosing said address of said data item on said media;

Device (13) for encryption (enciphering, scrambling)/decryption (deciphering, descrambling) of data items transferred to or from a mass storage media, where the mass storage media comprises physically addressable areas, wherein the device comprises:

a plurality of electronic encryption/decryption circuitry sections (41a, 41b, . . . , 41n) with a receivable connected memory space for associated encryption/decryption keys;
a comparator circuitry (40) partitioned in a plurality of sections comprising in each section two write-able/readable memory locations (100, 101), two electronic comparator units (102, 103) and a logic gate AND (104) interconnected such that said memory location (100) is compared with the content of an address item (105) in said comparator unit (102) to determine if said address item (105) is greater or equal to said memory location (100), and at the same time comparing said address item (105) with the content of said memory location (101) in said comparator unit (103) to determine if said address item (105) is less or equal to the content of said memory location (101), whereby the output of said gate (104) generates an enabling signal, in each said partition of said comparator (40), each said enabling signal is connected to one of said plurality of electronic encryption/decryption circuitry sections (41a, 41b, . . . , 41n).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method and device for encryption/decryption of data on mass storage device

Life of this patent

Method and device for encryption/decryption of data on mass storage device

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims36