The software giant plans to visually alter document or application windows that contain private information that's secured through Microsoft's Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB), formerly known as Palladium. Secure windows will look different than regular, unsecured windows in order to remind users that they are looking at confidential material, Peter Biddle, product unit manager for Microsoft, said Thursday at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) here.

"We know that users need to be able to tell the difference between a trusted window and a regular one," Biddle said. "The window (will be) noticeably different."

People will likely customize the secure pages, which will help prevent "spoof attacks," where hackers plant a fraudulent Web page on a PC screen that looks, but isn't, a file from a person's doctor or accountant, for example.

The border of a secured page may contain information--such as the names of all the dogs that someone has ever owned--to make the data instantly recognizable as sound to the individual owner, as well as difficult to replicate. A hacker can create a spoof page with dogs' names running along the border but, in all likelihood, not one reading "Buffy, Skip and Jack Daniels--and in that order," Biddle said.

NGSCB essentially creates a secure data vault and a secured way to transmit data between memory, the hard drive, the monitor and trusted third parties. Computer users will likely secure intellectual property files or bank records with it, but not the bulk of their data on their PC, according to Microsoft.

Information on secured windows will vanish if another window is placed on top of it or shifted to the background. Erasing the information will prevent certain types of attacks and remind people that they're dealing with confidential material, Biddle said.

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