From: ph@netcom.com (Peter Hendrickson)
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 20:55:27 -0800 (PST)
To: tom bryce <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: ideal secure personal computer system
Message-ID: <v02140b01aeac56fff48d@[192.0.2.1]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 3:55 AM 11/10/1996, tom bryce wrote:
>Here's a question: if one were designing for oneself a secure personal
>computer system, for use in, say, word processing, spreadsheet,
>communications, the usuals - what system would one purchase and how would
>one set it up?
>
>For example, on the Mac I would envision this as the ideal system:
>
>(1) Get a power mac
>(2) Partition the hard drive into two partitions:
>    install the system folder on one and a copy of CryptDisk
>    make this the startup partition and make it READ ONLY with aliases to
>    folders you want to be modiyfable (such as Eudora Folder in the sys folder)
>    place these folders on the encrypted partition
>(3) Completely fill the other partition with a CryptDisk file so there is no
>    room for other stuff to be written. Adjust the partition size if needed.
>(4) Install a screen saver (such as shareware Eclipse) that will password lock
>    the screen after a few minutes of inactivity, and set CryptDisk to dismount
>    the external partition after a few minutes of inactivity (or longer)

Watch out for the clipboard which appears to be stored as a file in
the system folder.  Unfortunately, it has to be a real file - aliases
not allowed.  This makes it harder to have a read only system folder
and, of course, every time you cut and paste something you leave a
ghost on the disk for an undefined length of time.  It's hard to
work on the Mac without using the clipboard.

I would love to know a workaround for this.

Peter Hendrickson
ph@netcom.com