From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Dave Eckhardt To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu> Subject: Re: [9fans] First-timer help In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <6884.1122012961.1@piper.nectar.cs.cmu.edu> Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 02:16:02 -0400 Message-ID: <6885.1122012962@piper.nectar.cs.cmu.edu> Topicbox-Message-UUID: 6df9f2c2-ead0-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 > Sure you can put a tiny cdr into the drive, but what if the bios > doesn't even boot the cdr (or refuses to, and has a password). > What if it boots the hard drive while making it look like its > booting the CDR? But my hypothetical CD-R kernels all print "Say farewell to Nova Scotia" on the screen just before entering user space for the first time. Or maybe it's only the kernels I boot on Mondays which use that particular message. Of course, *any* trust placed in a computing device other people have control over is risky (much fun could be had by storing away compressed snapshots of video memory every 5 minutes...all you need is a way to convince my kernel to call into the BIOS periodically...hmmm...how about that APM entry point?). You always need to draw a line somewhere. Dave Eckhardt