This is the Root of Trust (ROT) question, which seems to be asked again and again. (e.g. how do I know the pre-boot environment and the loader have not been tampered with, etc etc).
If you are serious about seeking an answer, I would suggest looking at the work of the folks in the Trusted Computing Group (TCG), in particular on using the TPM hardware as a root of trust. And no, the TCG and TPM is not about DRM :-) /thomas/ hardjono[at]mit.edu On Nov 1, 5:12 pm, Torin Walker <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm looking for a way to authenticate the bootloader and kernel images > to ensure the OS has not been tampered with from some factory default. > > One way I imagined doing this is to perform a cryptographic hash on > > /dev/mtd/mtd1 (bootloader image), and > /dev/mtd/mtd2 (kernel image), > > but opening up either of these devices into a CheckedInputStream (for > CRC32 validation, for example) results in an enormous crash. Not only > does the device stop responding, but the android debug bridge crashes > and no longer recognizes any attached devices until Windows Vista (go > figure) is rebooted. > > Can anyone suggest a better method for validating that the Operating > System has not changed (i.e. The bootloader and kernel are factory > defaults?) > > Torin...
