[144705] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
All your notebook belong to us
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jerry Leichter)
Sun Aug 9 10:16:33 2009
From: Jerry Leichter <leichter@lrw.com>
To: Cryptography List <cryptography@metzdowd.com>
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2009 08:52:07 -0400
Just about all notebooks shipped in the last 5 years or more contain a
helpful bit of code in the BIOS that allows for remote tracing in case
of theft. Unfortunately, it's got serious security holes, allowing it
to be used for much more nefarious purposes - like rootkits that
survive disk reformatting and OS installation:
http://www.coresecurity.com/content/Deactivate-the-Rootkit
*What* are the guys producing this junk thinking? It's all there
supposedly "to help customers" - but I have yet to see an actual
service offering that uses this stuff. So right now it's all
negatives, no positives.
-- Jerry
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