From: Jim Choate <ravage@EINSTEIN.ssz.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 1998 10:10:10 +0800
To: cypherpunks@EINSTEIN.ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
Subject: Re: Stego-empty hard drives... (fwd)
Message-ID: <199809231538.KAA10721@einstein.ssz.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



Forwarded message:

> Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 17:02:48 +0200
> From: "Albert P. Franco, II" <apf2@ctv.es>
> Subject: Re: Stego-empty hard drives... (fwd)

> I can't imagine that anyone that wasn't already sure that you were playing
> tricks with the HD would be able to detect either of these on a normal
> startup. Again I think the key is that it would vastly expensive and very
> time consuming for customs services to make more than a cursory check. More
> and more people are carrying notebooks with them on trips and just like
> most bag searching has ended due to very fast, but not perfect, technology,
> notebook scanning is limited by the very important public factor--the
> people waiting in line behind you will tend to get very anxious. :)

That's a rationale for doing TEMPEST scanning I hadn't thought of. Since it
is time consuming and takes special training (which means higher personel
budgets that don't amortise over time like hardware) to operate a floppy
scanner and interpet the results there are budget forces involved.

A box with a flat top and a funny looking cage on top that a agent could 
use thusly:

"Sir would you please place your laptop on the tray and turn it on?..."

It becomes possible to scan for sureptitous clock devices (their tick, tick,
tick in the EM), mod'ed hardware, and software.

Follow this with a gas spectrograph and a x-ray and you'd have the vast
majority of bases covered.

Since most countries require production equivalent models to undergo testing
(eg FCC EM emissions) it wouldn't be that much of a budget increase on that
end either.


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