Patent ID: 7155616

Claim:
A computer network comprising a plurality of interconnected network devices including: (a) a plurality of client computers; (b) an authentication server computer operated by a system administrator; and (c) a disk drive connected to the authentication server computer, the disk drive comprising: an interface for receiving personal authentication data and user access data from the system administrator; a disk for storing data; a disk controller for controlling access to the disk; an authenticator, responsive to the personal authentication data, for enabling the disk controller; and cryptographic circuitry for encrypting the user access data received from the system administrator into encrypted data stored on the disk; wherein: the user access data comprises a plurality of user identifiers and corresponding access rights to the plurality of network devices; the disk stores encrypted device access data associated with the network devices; the device access data for use in authenticating device access requests transmitted from client computers to the network devices; and the encrypted device access data is stored on the disk during manufacture of the disk drive.