From: "Perry E. Metzger" <pmetzger@lehman.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 93 11:21:55 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: POISON PILL
In-Reply-To: <930930175113_72114.1712_FHF68-1@CompuServe.COM>
Message-ID: <9309301812.AA01574@snark.lehman.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Sandy says:
> POISON PILL--What, if anything, can be done to booby-trap a
> computer?  Once the cops have a machine, one would expect that
> they will paw through everything in it.  In addition, they will
> probably use the stolen computer for their own data processing
> needs.  What could be done have the computer screw up the cop's
> data days, weeks or months after the seizure?  Of course, I would
> never do such a thing myself, nor would I advise anyone else to
> do so.

Why wouldn't you? Its your machine, so what you do to it is perfectly
legal. You are under no obligation to make your equipment suitable for
people who wish to steal it.

Nothing you can do in software will actually work, because people can
always boot off a fresh disk and start from scratch.

I suggest that the best way, which is not easy, is to alter the roms
on the disk controllers so they will only work properly with a special
version of the operating system. Then, run the special version of the
operating system, which should require that you do something
periodically or it will self destruct. Even if they reformat the disk,
they still won't have the proper information to feed the controller so
that it doesn't do unfortunate things.

Perry