Re: Stego-empty hard drives... (fwd)

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?

> 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?


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On or about 8:16 PM -0500 9/21/98, 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?

Yes.

>> 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?

Pressing an obscure key combination during bootup to trigger the password
prompt should do the trick.

-Lazlo

At 11:37 PM 9/21/98 -0400, Lazlo Toth wrote:
>>> 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.

As I recall, this thread is about customs officials booting your laptop
from *their* floppy and scanning your hard drive.  I suggest two
practical solutions to avoid this incursion:

1) Leave the floppy drive at home ;-) Many PCs have swapable floppy/
CD-ROM bays. I've learned to live without my floppy (others may not have
that option.)

2) If you can't leave your floppy at home, carry your sensitive data on 
a PCMCIA Type-II Hard Drive. Kingston sells one sporting 500MB 
of capacity. Pop it out and put it as far away from the laptop as you
can. Inside your other luggage somewhere.

-MpH
--------
Mark P. Hahn                    Work: 212-278-5861
mhahn@tcbtech.com               Home: 609-275-1834
TCB Technologies, Inc (mhahn@tcbtech.com)

Consultant to:
The SoGen Funds	1221 Avenue of the Americas, NY NY

Mark Hahn wrote:
> 
> 2) If you can't leave your floppy at home, carry your sensitive data on
> a PCMCIA Type-II Hard Drive. Kingston sells one sporting 500MB
> of capacity. Pop it out and put it as far away from the laptop as you
> can. Inside your other luggage somewhere.

I am ignorant about hardware. Question: Wouldn't it be possible to
somehow put information on a music CD?

At 8:16 PM -0500 9/21/98, Jim Choate wrote:
>Forwarded message:
>> Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 00:46:03 +0000
>> From: Michael Hohensee <mah248@is9.nyu.edu>
>> 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?
>
>> 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?

	Why prompt, you installed it, just have the startup stop at a
certain point, just simply pause. You hit a couple keys (4-8) and go on.
Given this case you don't really need the security of a long passphrase
since if they are looking to get in, you've lost already.

--
petro@playboy.com----for work related issues. I don't speak for Playboy.
petro@bounty.org-----for everthing else.      They wouldn't like that.
                                              They REALLY
Economic speech IS political speech.          wouldn't like that.

At 03:33 PM 9/22/98 +0100, Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
>Mark Hahn wrote:
>> 
>> 2) If you can't leave your floppy at home, carry your sensitive data on
>> a PCMCIA Type-II Hard Drive. Kingston sells one sporting 500MB
>> of capacity. Pop it out and put it as far away from the laptop as you
>> can. Inside your other luggage somewhere.
>
>I am ignorant about hardware. Question: Wouldn't it be possible to
>somehow put information on a music CD?

Sure. Simply trade offs of what's important to you and the situation you
might be in. 

If disguise is a primary factor, then a write once music CD would be
excellent.  If you need re-writable capability, use a CD-RW (re-writable
CD). However a CD-RW appears gold underneath, not sliver-ish, so
you have less of a disguise.

If you need fast random access, then neither version of CD will be
suitable. Hence the PCMCIA Hard Disk. However, you may have 
difficulty coming up with a cover story if, indeed, you do not want
to tell  a customs officer, "Oh, yeah, that's a portable disk drive".

As another trade off, most Laptops don't have CD-ROM writing drives,
so you would need an outboard drive. There are probably slick, portable
versions available, but that's more junk to lug through the airport
(and to explain, if necessary.)

Also, I was trying to suggest something practical to address the problem.
I.e. can be done in a week and under $500. Some of us could re-write the
BIOS and flash in the update in that time frame. Others of us will find
a credit card and mail order an easier route to take. (uh... minus the
lack of anonymity of buying mail order....)

-MpH
--------
Mark P. Hahn                    Work: 212-278-5861
mhahn@tcbtech.com               Home: 609-275-1834
TCB Technologies, Inc (mhahn@tcbtech.com)

Consultant to:
The SoGen Funds	1221 Avenue of the Americas, NY NY

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.