View Single Post
Old 24th May 2009
pik pik is offline
Port Guard
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 12
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by ocicat View Post
The standard arguments in response to these questions are:
  • If the bad guys have physical access to a computer, all bets are off.
I can understand this point of view for a server, but in my opinion it's a little off for laptops. I fully understand and accept that there is always the possibility for someone to own my machine by pulling the HDD out. In my case it's a bit more difficult - the aspire one has to be pulled to bits before you can get to the SSD, and it's using a ZIF socket or something, but I accept that anyone with enough persistence and know-how can get my data. If I was worried about this, I'd at least create an encrypted container for my data and mount it when I need it, or something.

I only have uni work on this laptop, there's nothing sensitive, so I'm not worried about the data as such. It was more the fact that someone could easily compromise the system if I left them alone with it for any more than 3 minutes that was a bit troublesome.

Quote:
No, you are not paranoid. You are just ignorant about security. Sorry, nothing personal
I don't think ignorant is the correct term? In my mind, ignorant people wouldn't have considered this, let alone bothered to do something about it... I don't make any claims to know anything about security, but I am making an effort to learn as much as I can.

I have read the bioctl manpage and noted that:
Quote:
Use of the crypto discipline is currently considered experimental.
It does seem relatively straight forward to achieve though, and I might look at it in future.

Quote:
Both ocicat and Oko have explained the security aspect of your post, so I'll move onto the SSD issues.
The problems with this particular SSD are pretty well documented over at the aspireoneuser.com forums, and people have turned to a range of different solutions to offset the issues under XP, but I'll be sure to look into this further anyway. In any case, I've seen a massive performance increase in the performance simply because OpenBSD isn't writing to the SSD anywhere near as much.

Thanks for all the prompt responses!
Reply With Quote