On Mon, 10 Feb 2003, Dave Howe wrote:
> no, lilo is. if you you can mount a pgpdisk (say) without software, then you
> are obviously much more talented than I am :)
Bullshit. lilo isn't doing -anything- at that point without somebody or
something (eg dongle) being present that has the -plaintext- key. Without
the key the disk isn't doing anything. So no, lilo isn't mounting the
partition. It -is- a tool to do the mount.
Subtle but important distinction.
As to mounting the disk without software, not a problem it could be done all
in hardware. Though you'd still need the passphrase/dongle.
> for virtual drives, the real question is at what point in the boot process
> you can mount a drive - if it is not until the os is fully functional, then
> you are unable to protect the os itself. if the bootstrap process can mount
> the drive before the os is functional, then you *can* protect the os.
No you can't. If the drive is mounted before the OS is loaded you can put
the system into a DMA state and read the disk (screw the OS) since it's
contents are now in plaintext. You can also prevent the default OS from
being loaded as well.
Clue: If you own the hardware, you own the software.
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