First, 'government' computer is unclear--I work for a goverment contractor, but this computer is privately owned. Info on it is protetected, however.

Second, we have rules that require password change very often and they require both upper and lowercase, special characters and numbers, min characters, too. These make the password very hard to remember and very hard to type--often takes me three tries. First to remember, second to mistype, you get it. Real bad-guys don't use the password anyway--you can get in using source-code.

Wiping my computer would be very very inconvienient. But to completely wipe a computer requires six hours of disk-write/rewrite. I think the bad-guys would notice by then and shut it down.

What problem is it that we're trying to solve? SSN distribution? Many forms still even ask for them--job applications, medical forms, etc. Most people write them without a second thought.

A computer can only protect information when it is powered on. It's a simple matter to remove a hard drive and decrypt its contents in a "safe" environment. ("Safe" for the hacker, that is.)

Disk removal would be ineffective if its info were encrypted.

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