Bitfrost and dual-boot

[Edward Cherlin]

On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 10:48 AM, Albert Cahalan <acahalan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jameson "Chema" Quinn writes:
>
>> Actually, the goals are more limited. Say you have dual-boot;
>> OS 1 has bitfrost, OS 2 does not. Things OS 2 should not do:
>>
>> 1. Read private files from OS 1.
> ...
>> 2. By writing to OS 1's file system,
>
> I do believe that, practically speaking, all of this is moot.
> Windows uses both SD card storage and the NAND flash storage.
>
> (NAND storage being what you'd hoped to protect)
>
> The most you could protect would be the firmware itself, but
> it is silly to imagine that a laptop would have OpenFirmware
> when the NAND storage doesn't even have Linux.

The question was, how to protect Linux from Windows, in particular
from malware allowed in by Windows. (Or possibly from malware designed
into Windows, a "marketing" practice not unknown in the past.)
Protecting Windows-only machines is Microsoft's problem, not ours.

We can be quite certain that script kiddies and others will attack
Fedora and OFW on dual-boot XOs. Imagine the botnet you could create
by implementing a Borgfrost[TM] hack! And then it would propagate via
the mesh!

Also, I think you completely misunderstand the market. The ability to
use Open FirmWare instead of a proprietary BIOS will be of intense
interest to all PC vendors. I expect OFW to sweep through most of the
market in no more than two or three years.

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-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
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"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay