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From: GreenXenon on 19 May 2010 15:00
Hi:

My secure dream laptop has following characteristics:

1. All IDs -- such as the MAC address [including that of the wireless
adapter] -- are totally dynamic. When the laptop is offed, these IDs
disappear without leaving a trace. When the laptop is switched on, new
IDs are generated.

2. The only ROM is mask-programmed ROM, as well as optical ROMs [CDs,
DVDs, etc.]

3. The only RAM is a hypothetical form of volatile RAM chips in which
all info is completely lost in 100th-of-a-second-or-less after the
laptop is turned-off. Even theoretically there is no way to recover
this data unless one completely re-powers before 100th-of-a-second
after power-off.

4. The wireless adapter has the longest range allowed by law

5. The OS is Macintosh and is installed on ROM chips

6. Chips of the hypothetical RAM listed in #3 substitute for the HDD

7. The is an optical-disc burner that is compatible with all formats
of optical discs [such as DVD-R, CD-R]

8. The radio transmitter [used for the wireless internet access] is
unidirectional and can beam the radio signal toward the wi-fi access
point without transmitting in any other direction

9. The clock skew of my system varies such that clock-skew-
fingerprinting would be a totally-useless technique to those trying to
identify my computer.

10. All parts of the laptop -- excluding the radio transmitter,
receiver, and antennas -- are tempest-shielded.

11. There is no malware [e.g. rootkits] installed in any of the ROM
chips.


Regards,

Green Xenon
From: Jochem Huhmann on 19 May 2010 16:25
GreenXenon <glucegen1x(a)gmail.com> writes:

> Hi:
>
> My secure dream laptop has following characteristics:

The usual market mechanisms which spit out laptops do not work this way
(and they're all very much the same these days). If you would care to
build and sell such a laptop you'd find you could not sell these things
for the money needed to build them and your company would go bankrupt in
no time at all.

Anyway, I would like to have these features (as well as some others),
too. Have you tried to contact the FSF (or others) about such an idea?
They just *might* be interested. Not with OS X, though. If you change
your requirements to have an open-source BIOS and some free Unix on it,
who knows? There might be enough geeks interested in such a device. The
time is right for such a thing and cheap hardware is abound, actually.

Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
From: GreenXenon on 19 May 2010 16:52
On May 19, 1:25 pm, Jochem Huhmann <j...(a)gmx.net> wrote:


> The usual market mechanisms which spit out laptops do not work this way
> (and they're all very much the same these days). If you would care to
> build and sell such a laptop you'd find you could not sell these things
> for the money needed to build them and your company would go bankrupt in
> no time at all.


Why would this hypothetical laptop be so expensive?
From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Kir=E1ly?= on 19 May 2010 16:57
In comp.sys.mac.apps GreenXenon <glucegen1x(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> My secure dream laptop has following characteristics:

My old Commodore 64 had most of the things on your list...

--
K.

Lang may your lum reek.
From: Robert Haar on 19 May 2010 18:41
On 5/19/10 3:00 PM, "GreenXenon" <glucegen1x(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi:
>
> My secure dream laptop has following characteristics:
>
> 1. All IDs -- such as the MAC address [including that of the wireless
> adapter] -- are totally dynamic. When the laptop is offed, these IDs

"offed" ? When it is killed, what matters anymore?



> 3. The only RAM is a hypothetical form of volatile RAM chips in which
> all info is completely lost in 100th-of-a-second-or-less after the
> laptop is turned-off.


> 5. The OS is Macintosh and is installed on ROM chips

What happens when Apple releases a bug fix for a security problem? DO you
have to wait for physical distribution of a new set of ROM chips through
trusted channels?
>
> 6. Chips of the hypothetical RAM listed in #3 substitute for the HDD

So you have no long term storage on the laptop? No data? Or do you burn a
new CD every time one byte changes in a data file?


> 11. There is no malware [e.g. rootkits] installed in any of the ROM
> chips.

How do you know?

> Green Xenon

Even if you could get one at a reasonable price, I don't think you would
really like using it. I know I wouldn't.

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