Re: Mutt & tmp files -- Root is not my Enemy

[Petro <petro@auctionwatch.com>]

On Tue, Nov 20, 2001 at 12:13:05PM +0100, Rolf Kutz wrote:
> Florian Bantner (f.bantner@axon-e.de) wrote:
> 
> > A fact about which I'm concerned
> > even more than about a hack from outside via the internet etc. is
> > real physical access to the box. Something hackers normaly don't pay
> > enough attention is that just somebody steps - let's say 6 o'clock
> > in the morning - into your room, shows you his police card - or what ever
> > govermental id card - and tells you that your computer is now his.
> 
> Use TMPFS. Encrypt your disk or do everything in
> RAM (maybe set up a diskless system booting from
> cd. See the bootcd-package). They might still be
> bugging your hardware.

    If this kind of attack is in your threat model, you need to
    seriously re-evaluate what you are doing. 

    Not saying that you should stop doing it, but there really isn't
    much you can do to stop it. 

    Quite frankly local encryption isn't going to help much against
    government agencies--even local police. The quickest way to "break"
    encryption is to use a rubber hose, and while they may apologize
    afterwards--if local law requires it, they still have access to your
    files and you are in pain. 

    This starts to get into "magnesium strips taped to the HD" and other
    such destructive foolishness--that, depending on what you're trying
    to hid and from whom may be necessary, but is still *really* ugly. 

> > You have to experience that for yourself to believe how easy this
> > could happen. Just be in the wrong place to the wrong time. 
> > It happend to me once, just because I lived that time in a
> > flat-sharing community. I didn't see my computers for about a year
> > and then all harddisk had been removed and where broken. 
> Did they replace the damage?

        

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