David M Douglas

Title: David M. Douglas: Inventor of a Hard Disk Password Security System

Introduction

David M. Douglas is an inventor associated with Houston, Texas, and Compaq Computer Corporation. His work includes a hard disk security invention designed to prevent unauthorized access to stored data.

Latest Patents

Douglas is credited with 1 patent, titled “Hard Disk Password Security System.” The invention keeps a hard drive locked after startup, allowing only a limited set of commands until the user enters the correct password. The password is stored on the hard disk itself, helping prevent someone from bypassing its security by moving the drive to another computer environment.

After the correct password is entered, the drive unlocks and functions as a conventional hard disk. The system can also support a user-defined password and a manufacturer-defined password. As a security measure, a wipe-data command can overwrite the user’s data and unlock the drive.

Career Highlights

Douglas’s listed company affiliation is Compaq Computer Corporation. His patent addresses a practical computer-security challenge: protecting data stored on a hard drive from access before authentication.

Collaborations

James D. Parzych and Kenneth W. Stufflebeam are identified as Douglas’s coworkers. Their names provide context for his professional associations, though the supplied information does not specify their roles in the patent.

Conclusion

David M. Douglas’s hard disk password security system combines drive-level authentication with an option to erase data, reflecting an approach to protecting information at the storage-device level.