> Another solution would be to modify your hard drive in a clean room so > that it would have an autodestruct capability that can be > electronically activated and which takes effect instantly or nearly > instantly. The autodestruct should be able to be activated by the > computer itself (of course, only root would be able to do this) (which > would require some extra software on your box). The autodestruct
This is dangerous for several reasons - an autodestruct which could oblitherate your drive would require an immense amount of energy. There's two ways I could see this being done - with electrical energy, and with mechanical energy (ie, a bomb). Take the former. A magnetic density great enough to randomize the data at the molecular level would also mean it is capable of destroying every electronic device in the near area. Although magnetic field strength decreases exponentially with distance, the levels would still be lethal up to several meters. It would also generate enough EM radiation to attract the attention of several agencies. So that idea is out the window. Option #2 - a bomb. Well, this requires access to a cleanroom, and a device capable of destroying the drive. Assuming it was technically feasible to do so (it's not), you still have to get access to a cleanroom. That means bringing your device in and assembling it. You know, cleanrooms may not be protected much, but people are gonna notice what you're doing.. you can't operate in a vaccum when doing something like this. If you want my opinion, it would be far more reasonable to design a hardware-based encryption solution. Design an IDE controller which transparently encrypts all data travelling between it and the remote system. Use a memory type which does not lend itself to data recovery, and create a secure method of sending the key to the hardware. This could be done either via the keyboard (since you would be on the PCI bus, theoretically you could override the OS and capture the keystrokes directly by hooking directly into the I/O ports of the keyboard in a secure fashion). This still isn't a highly secure solution though due to tempest emissions... but fixing that is left as an excercise to the reader. ~ Signal 11 P.S. Is this what they mean by "topic drift" ? _______________________________________________ Freenet-dev mailing list Freenet-dev at lists.sourceforge.net http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/freenet-dev
