| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|
| 20080232398 | VIRTUAL USB COMMUNICATIONS PORT - A method and system for accessing a remote real communication port (“COM port”) from a server blade in a server blade chassis by creating a virtual COM port in the server blade. A basic input/output system (BIOS) controller monitors an internal COM port in the server blade for communication traffic. Upon detecting the communication traffic, the BIOS controller reroutes the traffic to a virtual USB COM port created by the BIOS controller chipset. The virtual USB COM port directs the communication traffic to an internal universal serial bus (USB) device in the server blade. The USB device then forwards the traffic to an Ethernet media access controller (MAC) input/output (I/O) on a sideband channel to a remote system, which passes the communication traffic to a real COM port in the remote system. | 09-25-2008 |
| 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 |
| 20080263378 | System and method for protecting disk drive password when bios causes computer to leave suspend state - To unlock a HDD when a computer is in the suspend state, at both BIOS and the HDD a secret is combined with a password to render a new one-time password. BIOS sends its new one-time password to the HDD which unlocks itself only if a match is found. The new one-time password is then saved as an “old” password for subsequent combination with the secret when coming out of subsequent suspend states. In this way, if a computer is stolen the thief cannot sniff the bus between BIOS and the HDD to obtain a password that is of any use once the computer ever re-enters the suspend state. | 10-23-2008 |
| 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 |
| 20090119785 | System and Method for Secure Usage of Peripheral Devices Using Shared Secrets - A system, method, and program product is provided that establishes a shared secret between a computer system and a peripheral device such as a removable nonvolatile storage device or a printer. After establishing the shared secret, the peripheral device is locked. After the peripheral device is locked, an unlock request is received and the shared secret is sent to the peripheral device. The peripheral device then attempts to verify the shared secret. If the shared secret is successfully verified, then the peripheral device is unlocked allowing use of the device by using an encryption key that is made available by the verified shared secret. On the other hand, if the shared secret is not verified, then the peripheral device remains locked and use of the device is prevented. | 05-07-2009 |
| 20090217024 | Recovering from Hard Disk Errors that Corrupt One or More Critical System Boot Files - A system, method, and program product is provided that recovers from a sector error affecting a critical file. A damaged sector prevents a critical file from being read prevents the computer system from booting. A controller records a sector number corresponding to the damaged sector. The system is rebooted using an alternative boot media. The system accesses the primary nonvolatile storage media after the rebooting. The damaged sector number is read from the error log and a file map is used to determine the critical file that is stored in the damaged sector. A backup copy of the critical file is retrieved from a backup media. The backup copy is written to the primary media using undamaged sectors and the critical file is mapped to the undamaged sectors. The system is subsequently booted successfully from the primary nonvolatile storage media. | 08-27-2009 |
| 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 |
| 20090248784 | DISKLESS IMAGE BOOT OUTSIDE OF LAN - A local area network (LAN) server allows an authenticated user of a computer remote from the LAN to cause a diskless computer in the LAN to redirect screen shots to the computer remote from the LAN, with the screen shots being generated based on a users computer image persistently stored in an enterprise storage of the LAN. | 10-01-2009 |
| 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 |
| 20100058082 | MAINTAINING NETWORK LINK DURING SUSPEND STATE - A low power processor in a computer is kept energized in a suspend state in which a main processor of the computer is deenergized. The low power processor maintains a network connection by sending keepalive packets as required by the network communication protocol. | 03-04-2010 |
| 20100083366 | Blocking Computer System Ports on Per User Basis - An approach is provided that receives a user identifier from a user of the information handling system. The user identifier can include a username as well as a user authentication code, such as a password. Hardware settings that correspond to the user identifier are retrieved from a nonvolatile memory. Hardware devices, such as ports (e.g., USB controller), network interfaces, storage devices, and boot sequences, are configured using the retrieved hardware settings. After the hardware devices have been configured to correspond to the identified user, an operating system is booted. | 04-01-2010 |
| 20100090963 | SLATE COMPUTER WITH TACTILE HOME KEYS - Fingertip-sized discrete areas are provided on a slate computer and have different tactile characteristics than the remainder of the surface on which they are disposed. The discrete areas are arranged to mimic home keys of a keyboard and each discrete area corresponds to a respective home key. In this way, a user is given tactile feedback of when fingers are properly placed in the home position, with home key finger placement triggering the presentation of a full keyboard on screen. Other embodiments do not use tactilely distinct keys, with simultaneous placement of two or more fingers on the computer triggering display of the virtual keyboard. | 04-15-2010 |
| 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 |
| 20110055627 | Seamless Application Session Reconstruction Between Devices - A first device captures session data for each application session that is executing on a first device, and provides the session data to a second device in order for the second device to reconstruct the application sessions. A first device identifies one or more application sessions currently executing on the first device. Each of the application sessions include a media object and session data, which includes a media object identifier that corresponds to the media object and a first device media session position. The first device captures the session data transmits the captured session data to one or more second devices. The second devices are adapted to reconstruct at least one of the application sessions using the received session data and positions the application sessions at a second device media session position that corresponds to the received first device media session position. | 03-03-2011 |
| 20110096483 | FLIPPABLE I/O PORT FOR PORTABLE COMPUTER - An I/O housing holds an I/O port and is pivotable between a housed position, wherein the I/O housing is held snugly flat in a chassis of the computer, and an extended position, wherein the port end of the housing is distanced from the chassis. The I/O housing can mechanically engage an I/O device with the port establishing communication between the I/O device and the computer processor. | 04-28-2011 |
