Shades of FV's Nathaniel Borenstein: Carnivore's "Magic Lantern"

[pasward at big.uwaterloo.ca]

Jay D. Dyson writes:
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 > 
 > On Wed, 21 Nov 2001 pasward at big.uwaterloo.ca wrote:
 > 
 > >  > 	Yet another reason why Open Source is your friend.
 > > 
 > > I did not mean to imply that I am running some variety of windows.  I am
 > > interested in the technical problem of what is the state of the art for
 > > detecting whether or not a computer has been tampered with.  The use of
 > > some version of un*x does not per se solve this. 
 > 
 > 	I'm afraid we're still in the "arms race" model in that respect. 
 > Every time one party comes up with a new widget, another party quickly
 > follows with a widget-defeater.  Then the original party releases an
 > updated widget with a widget-defeater-defeater feature.  Then the opposing
 > party responds in kind.  On and on it goes...like a dog chasing its tail.
 > 
 > 	My original response handles the electronic portion of the
 > equation (though I do concede the point another writer made that all bets
 > are off when the day of the Backdoored BIOS arrives).  If you mean only
 > the physical aspect of the equation, there are a number of tricks you can
 > use ranging from sealing a system with epoxy, locks and so on...or (for
 > those who dig Mission: Impossible stuff), boobytrapping a system to either
 > explode a dye-pack (like that used in banks) or commit digital seppuku if
 > an unauthorized party dicks with it.
 > 
 > 	I must admit the dye-pack idea has a certain appeal to it. 
 > Nothing would make my day like seeing some goons come out of my house with
 > bright Candy Apple Red faces. 

I'm not actually worried about physical access at this point.
Breaking and entering is a lot more difficult that hacking into a
system, and frequently leaves evidence.  More to the point, this is no
different as a risk than that experienced whenever you use a physical
ATM machine to access cash.  My concern is with software access to a
machine that is to be used in the same manner as an ATM.

Paul



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