POISON PILL

[mycal (voices through your head @ 88.1MHz)]

On Thu, 30 Sep 1993 15:19:44 -0500 (CDT), "Jim McCoy" <mccoy at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu> wrote:
> 
> If you want to protect your data is such situations you need to set up your
> system so that even if they have the data it does them nothing (e.g.
> encryptiong), not so that it will destroy the data.
> 

OK, here is the twist that should work .  If the computer
falls into the wrong hands the computer could just lock down all the data
on the hard disk, encripting it.

None of the data would be lost, just encripted.  You'd need the recovery
program boot disk and the password/phrase to unlock the hard disk.

This program could be hidden in a modified copy of the operating system,
you could also add the modified prom code so the computer wouldn't work
without the modified operating system.

So they would have a useless computer, but the data wouldn't be recoverable
and if they reformatted the HD, they still couldn't use it.  I don't think
they would be smart enough to know that the prom had been replaced.

Then again, there are probibly already programs out there that encript
the HD already.

mycal