Originally Posted by Cromely
When you look for your next notebook, you may want to look for one that features "TPM 1.2"
This is a hardware based encryption module that is featured on many business-class notebooks sold over the last 6-12 months. You may not find it at the local retailers, but major notebook manufacturers typically offer it.
The TPM (Trusted Platform Module) let's you encrypt individual files or directorites. You can even create entire hidden encrypted partitions. It doesn't appear to slow down my machine at all.
The chip is on the mother board, so even if someone pulls out the drive and puts it in another machine, without a password, their stuck.
. . .
"Older" machines may feature the 1.1 version, but I believe the 1.2 version is the one that will support the Windows Vista advanced security features.
The TPM itself does not provide the disk encryption, however it provides "secure storage" for the encryption keys that may be used to encrypt the disk contents. Today, laptop manufacturers include their own tools to allow the user to manage the TPM (including 1.1) and make some use of its secure storage capabilities, however as you mention Vista will take direct advantage of it (BitLocker disk encryption).
Long term, a TPM is a useful thing to have in a computing device as it, coupled with specs that are being developed in the Trusted Computing Group, will provide stronger measures of a device's integrity, and allow apps to be built on top that take advantage of that integrity.