Not sure that the sentiments below are 100% correct - see Ross Andersons papers on logical and API attacks upon tamper resistant hardware, faciltated by physical (or near physical) access to the hardware. If you can do it in software, you can break it in software. Lyal -----Original Message----- From: Craig Paterson [mailto:craigp@tippett.com] Sent: Wednesday, 10 December 2003 7:03 AM To: David Brodbeck Cc: 'jon schatz'; bugtraq@securityfocus.com Subject: Re: Dell BIOS DoS David Brodbeck wrote: >There is no such thing as security from someone who has physical access to >the hardware. > Alright, so this is a tangent, but: that is what encryption is for. The whole basis of encryption assumes that the attacker has access to the message (your data), but that without the appropriate keys you can't usefully access it. No, this doesn't have much to do with the value or otherwise of BIOS passwords, but it's often stated that physical access renders all your data wide open, which isn't necessarily the case. Craig.
