"Michael Dickey" writes, in part: --------------------------------- | I don't like is the ability to access it remotely, even when | powered off. I don't consider that a good feature. If I can | access it remotely, there is the risk that someone else can as | well. I am not even sold on the idea that I need to be able to | remotely manage laptops out-of-band.
[ Potentially off-topic... ] What you describe, sir, is in some ways treating the laptop as if it were an embedded system witin some Larger System, and for embedded systems generally, this is the central question: Is it, or is it not, good for an embedded device to have a remote management interface? * On the one hand, how else can you fix the inevitable flaws that will surely turn up in places you cannot physically visit? * On the other hand, unlike a desktop or anything else where a human may actually notice something weird, an embedded device has no one watching it so a remote management interface has to flawless or the exploitation of that remote management interface will not be noticed in time to do anything about it. The product feature set you are discussing here is one which more or less makes the laptop into an embedded system: In the mode of remote operation mentioned, there is no human observer hence the question I'm raising about embedded systems thus applies. One is reminded of that question where when a tree falls in the forest with no one present did it or did it not make a sound. If a remote management interface is penetrated when there is no one to notice, did it or did it not represent a security event? I may, of course, merely be raving. --dan _______________________________________________ FDE mailing list [email protected] http://www.xml-dev.com/mailman/listinfo/fde
