Jim Choate wrote:
Forwarded message:
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 00:46:03 +0000 From: Michael Hohensee <mah248@is9.nyu.edu> Subject: Re: Stego-empty hard drives... (fwd)
I believe that the idea was to set it up so that BIOS defaults to HD-hiding mode.
How do you propose to do this? Via a BIOS setting?
Well, I don't propose to do it at all, since I lack the expertise to do it or even know how much trouble it would be to do it. :) I believe that the idea was to change BIOS itself. That is, change the BIOS program, rather than a setting. This was to be done by flash-updating the BIOS with a new program.
When you're taking your laptop through customs, you do nothing while the machine boots up, the doctored BIOS does its thing, and everybody's happy. When you want to get at the stuff on the rest of the HD, you reboot and type in your passphrase.
How do you propose to prompt the user for the correct time to type?
Perhaps the new BIOS program listens for something like Ctrl-Shift-P, and if it gets it, goes into passphrase mode. Otherwise, it does its little trick. As long as the doctored BIOS program produces a normal looking bootup sequence (but hides the HD), everything's fine.