Some businesses and professionals need an extremely secure OS lock, that even the best of the best can't crack...

[Joel Rees]

On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 8:12 AM, Linda McLeod <lindavaldeen at fastmail.fm> wrote:
> [...]
>
> I'm trying to find a simple yet complex system within a system, that
> secures private data behind internal passwords and a hardware key, which
> both can't be cracked..  "a file safe" that really works, and isn't too
> much of a bother to run.. it doesn't "fight" you...  It seems it needs
> be "a secondary mother board and separate ram file", separate from the
> main mother board, and linkable only to the primary M-Board when the OS
> is switch disconnected from the Net..?
>
> Are there any towers that have two mother boards..?

Two mother boards is not the perfect answer unless you never let the
one talk to the other, especially with today's OSses. (Including
Fedora/RH.) And you'd still have the physical possession issues, which
seem to be the ones that have you unstrung.

By the way, you never really gave enough detail on your original
problem, but it looked like you were relying on the manufacturer's
"locks" on the hard drive, and the password examples looked woefully
short.

And it sounds like you discovered rainbow tables, but I'm not sure.

There are other kinds of encryption which do much better, and there is
such a thing as the choice of a password.

> ______________________________
>
>
> The lost PW is the "Root PW"..  Plus the other lost PW, on another old
> hd, is the PW to open the encrypted F-14 OS...

Yeah, yeah, but what is your real goal? Do you want to be able to lose
data permanently by losing a password? Doesn't work. See threads in
the past where the conclusion was removing the platter and burnishing
off the media/recording layer, and then melting down the substrate.

But I don't think that's your real goal.

The answer to any security question is, "How valuable is the data?"

Then you choose your means of securing to match the value of the data,
just hard enough to discourage those parties that think they are
interested in your data.

There are whole books written on the topic. A few posts here will not
really cover the subject.

Are you familiar with Bruce Schneier's writings?

Joel Rees