Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080239545 | System and Method to Avoid Disk Lube Pooling - A system and method to avoid disk lube pooling is presented. A track access monitor tracks the number of times that a program accesses a particular track located on a hard drive. When the track access monitor determines that the number of track accesses to a particular track exceed a track access threshold, the track access monitor invokes a sequence of events to scan adjacent tracks in order to uniformly redistribute lubrication over the hard drive. In one embodiment, the track access monitor incrementally performs the adjacent track scanning during hard drive idle periods, such as when the system waits for a password from a user or when the operating system conserves power and idles the hard drive due to lack of activity. | 10-02-2008 |
20080244553 | System and Method for Securely Updating Firmware Devices by Using a Hypervisor - A system, method, and program product is provided that receives and processes a firmware update at a computer system. The computer system is executing a hypervisor and one or more guest operating systems, and the firmware update corresponds to a hardware device accessible by the computer system. The hardware device is a type that is programmed using an updateable firmware. The hypervisor operating in the computer system processes the received firmware update by first inhibiting use of the device by each of the guest operating systems. After the guest operating systems have been inhibited from using the device, the firmware in the device is upgraded by the hypervisor using the received firmware update. After the firmware has been upgraded, each of the guest operating systems is allowed use of the device. | 10-02-2008 |
20080301675 | System and Method for Graphics Remapping in Hypervisor - A hypervisor operating system instantiates a virtual video driver to a main operating system that supports only one type of graphics adapter. The virtual driver handles graphics remapping among plural different display drivers associated with plural different display monitors to enable a computer to output data on multiple different monitors even though the main O.S. supports only one type of display driver. | 12-04-2008 |
20090070598 | System and Method for Secure Data Disposal - A system, method, and program product is provided that initializes expected PCRs stored in a TPM by generating and storing a random number, seeding expected PCRs with the random number, inputting a set of startup code processes to a hash algorithm resulting in a set of hash values, updating the expected PCRs using the set of hash values, and saving the expected PCRs in a nonvolatile data area that is secured by the TPM. Upon reboot, the random number is retrieved from the nonvolatile data area, the PCRs are seeded with the retrieved random number, the startup code processes are input to the hash algorithm process resulting in another set of hash values, the PCRs are updated using the resulting set of hash values, and an encrypted data object is decrypted in response to the PCRs being the same as the expected PCRs. | 03-12-2009 |
20090094465 | BATTERY PACK FOR PORTABLE COMPUTER - A first battery assembly is in a first battery housing that is mechanically engageable with a portable computer, and a second battery assembly is in a second battery housing that is mechanically couplable to the first battery housing. A switch has a first configuration in which communication is established between the portable computer and the first battery assembly and a second configuration in which communication is established between the portable computer and the second battery assembly. | 04-09-2009 |
20090222635 | System and Method to Use Chipset Resources to Clear Sensitive Data from Computer System Memory - A system, method, and program product is provided that initializes a computer system using an initialization process that identifies secrets that were stored in memory and not scrubbed during a prior use of the computer system. During the initialization process, one or more secret indicators are retrieved that identify whether one or more secrets were scrubbed from the computer system's memory during a previous use of the computer system. If the secret indicators show that one or more secrets were not scrubbed from the memory during the prior use of the computer system, then the initialization process scrubs the memory. On the other hand, if the secret indicators show that each of the secrets was scrubbed from the memory during the prior use of the computer system, then the memory is not scrubbed during the initialization process. | 09-03-2009 |
20090222915 | System and Method for Securely Clearing Secret Data that Remain in a Computer System Memory - A system, method, and program product is provided that initializes a counter maintained in a nonvolatile memory of a security module to an initialization value. The security module receives requests for a secret from requesters. The security module releases the secret to the requesters and the released secrets are stored in memory areas allocated to the requesters. A counter is incremented when the secret is released. Requestors send notifications to the security module indicating that the requestor has removed the secret from the requestor's memory area. The security module decrements the counter each time a notification is received. When the computer system is rebooted, if the counter is not at the initialization value, the system memory is scrubbed erasing any secrets that remain in memory. | 09-03-2009 |
20090328233 | SENDING LOG OF ACCESSED DATA PRIOR TO EXECUTING DISABLE COMMAND IN LOST COMPUTER - Prior to disabling itself in response to a disable command, a lost or stolen portable computer first constructs a log of data that has been accessed recently and sends the log to the rightful owner's address, so the owner knows specifically what data might have been compromised. | 12-31-2009 |
20100027151 | SECURE DATA DISPOSAL FOR DISK DRIVE - When a disk sector is written to, a bit for the sector is set indicating that the sector will require secure data disposal (SDD) to be run on it. To save time during end of life disposal, SDD is executed only on sectors whose bits indicate that they have been written to. SDD can be executed on each dirty sector in one operation at end of life or incrementally during use as disk activity permits. | 02-04-2010 |
20110026157 | SECURE DATA DISPOSAL FOR DISK DRIVE - When a disk sector is written to, a bit for the sector is set indicating that the sector will require secure data disposal (SDD) to be run on it To saw time during end of life disposal, SDD is executed only on sectors whose bits indicate that they have been written to. SDD can be executed on each dirty sector in one operation at end of life or incrementally during use as disk activity permits. | 02-03-2011 |