From: Michael Hohensee <mah248@is9.nyu.edu>
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 12:43:09 +0800
To: Jim Choate <cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com
Subject: Re: Stego-empty hard drives... (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <199809220116.UAA20070@einstein.ssz.com>
Message-ID: <3607E291.4D7BFFBA@is9.nyu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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.