LITTLE BROTHER INSIDE

[Sandy Sandfort <sandfort@crl.com>]

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                         SANDY SANDFORT
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C'punks,

I was just thinking about computer seizures and thefts.  I think
I've come up with a couple of interesting solutions.

REMOTE CONTROL--In addition to denying access to your files by
encrypting, you might want to *change* them in some way *after*
your computer has been seized/stolen.  Pagers are cheap.  They
can be pinged no matter where they are located in their service
area.  They can be accessed from any phone (even a jailhouse
payphone).  And they are small enough to be wired into your
computer.  It souldn't be too difficult to fix it so your
computer can read transmitted numbers from the pager's memory.
Code numbers could be used to tell your computer to take various
actions.  Depending upon your circumstances, you could tell your
computer to decrypt this or that set of files, to reformat the
hard drive, to fry the CPU, etc.

LITTLE BROTHER INSIDE--Even better than a pager, would be a cell
phone.  It would be more expensive, but also more versatile.  In
addition to giving instructions to your computer, a cell phone
could be used to *eavesdrop* on the location where your computer
is being held.  By disabling the ringer and remounting the
mouthpiece, you could surreptitiously call your computer, any
time, from any phone and monitor conversations in the area.  (To
paraphrase an old military curse, "bug the bugging buggers.")  As
long as the computer is plugged in, the cell phones batteries
will continue to be topped off.  (For the truly thorough privacy
advocate, a GPS unit could be hooked into the cell phone to give
you its location.)


 S a n d y

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