Stego-empty hard drives... (fwd)

Tue Sep 22 02:03:21 PDT 1998

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On 9/22/98 3:48 PM, Jim Choate (ravage at einstein.ssz.com)  passed this
wisdom:

>When you're at that level you don't carry the data across the line
>you get some Johnnie Mnemonic to do it for you or put it in a 
>diplomatic pouch...

I think the real answer here, and totally in keeping with the KISS
rule, has already been suggested. If you have sensitive data you keep
it on a PCMCIA hard drive card and remove it when not in use (or a
CD-R or a ZipDisk, though the PCMCIA hard drive does allow it to be a
'working' volume featuring speed and capacity that a Zip or a CD-R
cannot offer). It can work as easily for a desktop as for a laptop.
You can add to the security of this by using your platform of choice's
flavor of Secure Drive, Cryptdisk, PGPDisk, etc.

The ultimate stego is that the card is nowhere near the computer with
the main hard drive and they don't bother looking beyond when the
drive evaluation turns nothing up.

If its trafficking in illicit data the "mule' shouldn't even be
carrying a computer (or maybe only a Palm Pilot!) so the hounds have
even less reason to be looking for comp[uter stuff on him.

Brian B. Riley --> http://members.macconnect.com/~brianbr
  For PGP Keys  <mailto:brianbr at together.net?subject=Get%20PGP%20Key>

   "First say to your self what you would be; then do what you
    have to do."  Epictetus (35-135 A.D.)