Can someone explain the TPM feature in ASUS notebooks?

I've been seeing this advertised here and there for certain ASUS notebook models (Z62J, P1Mx (meaning A8Jm should have it too) ...), and people who have certain Infineon security software installed on their notebooks.

Can someone explain to me how it works and what it's supposed to do? I've read the Infineon site about TPM 1.2 etc, but what's the practical use in our notebooks?

 

i've never heard of TPM wuts that?

 

TPM is a hardware-based security feature that can be used to create and manage computer-generated encryption keys. When combined with security software, the TPM enhances existing network and computer security by enabling features such as file protection capabilities and protected e-mail. The TPM feature is enabled through a system setup option.

Edit: Got if from Dell's website

 

TPM is Trusted Platform Module.
Its on most serious business notebooks and on all ThinkPads.
I dont know exactly what it is, but it is a vital security feature I guess.

 

Yea.. been wondering what TPM is.. It's available in my W3J, but I didn't install it. What are the features and advantages of having this "security"?

 

Well, in its simplest form, I'd assume it will let you lockdown/encrypt your whole drive so nobody can use it if they don't have the password... I guess the original purpose is for enterprise users to prevent stealing of sensitive company data.

 

TPM is just that, the "trusted platform module". It is going to be used more and more along with other security methods like fingerprint id and so on, but from my understanding of it... .it's a huge deal for businesses or at least that's why intel developed it. I'm not 100% sure how it works, myself, but I did get a run down about it on a conference call many months ago.

It's a built in, hardware security feature and I'm sure more information could be googled than I could provide right now, but it's meant for use with encryption and just security in general. I almost want to say that your hard drive is bound to some encryption key that's stored on the motherboard..... Because if you have a bios password, resetting the watch battery on the mobo or taking out the hard drive and loading it in another system as a master would let you in. If you had a windows password, someone could take out that hard drive and put it on another system as a slave and pull all of your information off. If TPM does what I think it does, it would eliminate that, which has been the biggest secuity hole on any computer, no matter what security you have. For us, when working on a system that comes in, if a customer has a software problem, but locks down their login and the admin..... we load up the hard drive on another system to see what's going on.... that sort of makes servicing more difficult, but I do believe that's what this is about. Teamed up with a fingerprint scanner, you're really locking things down. But if someone stole the hard drive, they couldn't get in without a password or a fingerprint........ and if they took the hard drive out of the system, everything would be encrypted or not accessible.

... again, I could be totally off, but it wasn't something that was going to change everyone's life, including my own, so I try to repress those things..... but even if I'm flat out mistaken, but that was my initial take on it.

 

* Ted stops to pack his bolt cutters *

"Thanks for the heads up."

 

I guess the next step would be:

"Unauthorized access... this hard drive will self destruct in 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1.. *poof of white smoke*" ala Mission Impossible

 

Integrated [URL='http://www.infineon.com/cgi-bin/ifx/portal/ep/channelView.do?channelId=-83725&channelPage=%2Fep%2Fchannel%2FproductCategories.jsp&pageTypeId=17099' target=_blank]
Infineon Trusted Platform Module Professional Package v2.5 software & hardware v1.2 [/URL]

Both the hardware and software are explained thoroughly at that link.

 

a more critical view of it
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/08/trusted_computi.html

extensive explanation
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html

 

so does the A8Jm have TPM and the requisite software?

 

Well, that's what I was saying, the P1Mx was advertised as having TPM, so I'm assuming the A8Jm would have the same feature since it's hardware based. It don't have the software though....

 

is it something different then the tpm discussed here?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=106125

where the laptop will only run intel approved hardware/software