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Stash Your Hard Drive In The Attic
RegardsSJ writes "Robert X. Cringley on his PBS website mentions a $479 wireless, fanless 120gb network storage/file server appliance (running linux) in his column. He thinks the killer app for this one is for keeping your porn storage hidden, if you're busted by the cops. I think his concept is weak, given the wireless signal is traceable (security through obscurity?), WEP is breakable, and the fact that you have to have the thing plugged in somewhere... The company selling the device is martian.com. Anybody use one?" Now that it's possible to stream audio and video through various boxes originally serving other purposes (like TiVo and PlayStation2), this looks like a good companion piece, too.
Since when is having porn illegal?
Ummm... I didn't see any child-porn-storage type of usage mentioned on the website. How about the millions of people who could theoretically be shut away for their "illegal" mp3 collection?
:) Also, perhaps better encryption with a smart-card at the PC you could remove and destroy. Then it would be a perfect product for terrorists and pedophiles alike ...and perhaps normal people who don't want anyone seizing their data.
If only it came with a self-destruct mechanism, it might overcome the shortcomings you mentioned
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
would you want to hide your porn collection, unless you're a paedophile?
would be to store the heat-producing noisy things in a different room than the humans.
(Perhaps this is mentioned in the article. I can't tell because their webserver is on fire.)
Both at home and at work, I'm tired of noisy machines. I work to minimize the noise. I'd love to just say, "fuck it, be as noisy as you want," as I lovingly place all the equipment on the other side of a wall, leaving nothing but a monitor and the input devices in front of me.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Just because it's fanless doesn't mean it generates no heat. In fact, free airflow is probably more important than with forced-air cooling. I've seen plenty of complaints about how hot that fanless Apple cube box could get.
Covering the box with insulation and putting it in a 140 degree F attic sounds like a sure-fire way to fry the system. I would be surprised if it's not a fire hazard as well.
No effect yet traced, but cautious researchers saying not finding something is not the same as proving it doesn't exist, which the worried then take as an assertion it does exist.
Mobiles are limited to ?1 watt?. A torch bulb is several watts, at higher (and conventionally more damaging) . I just don't see any mechanism for damage; and nobody (AFAIK) has followed up any suggestions with valid research.
Sunlight is about 500w/m^2. The top of my head is about about 20 cm round of this, so a sunny day gives 10-20W onto my skull. A mobile at a total of 1W, not all of which is radiated towards me? I am not worrying.
And, to keep on topic, I think WiFi is even less (?1/4 watt?) and you don't hold it close to you.
I would worry far more about exhaust fumes, myself. But those seem less dangerous to ordinary people, because you can "see" them, whereas you can't see this nasty electromagnetic radiation (big bad word there).
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Maybe hiding something like this in your attic wouldn't work out if the police turned your house over, but it would almost certainly survive if you got your house burgled - I doubt that many burglars take the time (or even think) to look in the attic.
Ok, if you hide your file server in your attic, it will be found with difficulty. Still, if the cops really want to find it, they'll just come with radio tracking equipment! 802.11 transmitters should be easily located.
The best way to keep anything hidden from anybody is to keep them from ever knowing it existed in the first place - if they already know, or suspect, then it's already too late.
Sure, you might have your super-leet miniserver stuck in your heating ducts, powered by a little mini-windmill and linked via 802.11g to your house, with an emergency "shut up for 24 hours" command, and that might keep it from being found in a cursory search. But if the cops really think you have something on a computer in your house that is worth finding, they will find it. They will keep searching until they do, even if it takes days.
So the day after you are hauled downtown, one of the forensics team says "Hey, there's a signal here on 5GHz - get the spec-an in here and let's DF that puppy."
Now, if you used strong encryption, you might keep them from knowing what is on the disk, but find it they will. And they can compel you to provide the key - even here in the US, all they have to do is say "Fine - we won't charge you based on anything we find." That "poofing" sound was your 5th Amendment right becoming irrelevant - you can no longer incriminate yourself, so you can no longer refuse to testify and be protected. Continue to refuse, and they find you in contempt of court and lock you up until you change your mind.
Robert Heinlein made the point in "If This Goes On..." that the best thing in the world is to let them find something bad, but not bad enough to get you into trouble. So, if you are plotting the overthrow of the known world, you keep that info a deep, dark secret tattooed on the inside of your eyelids encrypted with a 4096 bit key, but you keep your goat porn on a drive they will find (with a little looking). Then, when they think you are hiding something and find the drive, they look a little longer, don't find anything, and move on.
But once again, the big trick is not to arouse suspicions in the first place. If they knock on the door, you've already lost.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Tell that to the security guard who saved all those people at the atlanta olympics. His thanks? All of america hearing about his house full of pornography, every day, for weeks, and for the rest of his life in the occasional SNL rerun. I suppose there might be greater humiliation available, but one might have to actively pursue it.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
thats a good point.. now that were seing more and more digital pictures, digital films, etc, there will be an increase in need to keep backups. Not just on a floppy either. How hard would it be for someone design a fireproof little vault that you could stuff in some remote corner of the house, wireless enable it.. and have it easy enough to hook up that grandma could use it for data storage?
Just think.. then instead of having to try and mount the hardrive on a different computer when it breaks.. I can just format it.. install a fresh OS, and copy and paste from my little safe.
Or bettery yet.. just keep a copy of the whole hard-drive.. not just the data files.. so when grandmas computer breaks.. I can tell here to pop in the restore cd.. have it boot up.. and automatically restore the lastest stable image of her hardrive. I wouldn't even have to run across town.
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
[quote]If you have the kind of porn that has to be hidden from police, you belong in jail.[/quote]
Really? So if you're gay in Alabama and want porn, you belong in jail? Or if you like oral sex in your porn and you live in Mississippi, you belong in jail? That's a pretty tough stance.
Cheers
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
He thinks the killer app for this one is for keeping your porn storage hidden, if you're busted by the cops.
There is no mention of storing porn in the linked article. It suggests hiding data from the cops. Thanks to your thoughtless editorializing in the submission, half the posts here are off-topic. A simple skim of the article by an editor would have caught this. Anyone want to point me to the subscriptions page now?
"...Scandinavia are the greatest child-porn production areas in the world"
Yeah, but Scandinavia is a clean, efficient, well-run collection of countries. Denmark has some of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. The people there are intelligent and charming.
America, on the other hand...
> Christian U.S. where we depose dictators
Heh! You clearly know *nothing* about American foreign policy over the last 50 odd years.
Really? So if you're gay in Alabama and want porn, you belong in jail? Or if you like oral sex in your porn and you live in Mississippi, you belong in jail? That's a pretty tough stance.
The law is neither just nor moral when it comes to a persons sexual lifestyles.. Its used as a tool to keep the status quo.
Wake up people, when sodomy laws reach the us supreme court because state courts call certain life styles "Illegal", there is a massive witch-hunt and you need to protect yourself.
This is just another tool, to protect you from prying eyes. Since the 4th amendment "Being secure with your own papers against unjust searches and seizures..." is no longer valid, you need to secure them yourself.
The future is encryption of data. Of course how long encryption of data will remain legal, is a upto the whims of our congress critters. Patriot Act 2 here we come.
Everybody seems to want to pull this into the
extreme, by mentioning police, feds etc.
I think a more normal, and more common cause would be simple protection for thieves:
- They have to work quickly in general.
- They are relatively low tech
- They are after the hardware, not the data. (why search the house for a $400 appliance for which they probably don't even get $100
So simple separating the visible part to of your
computers from the storage/data as far as thieves are concerned.
Target: normal, ordinary people with important records: dentist, doctors, some journalists, politicians (including local, often worth a lot of money to real-estate entrepeneurs) etc.
Am I the only one who's attic is about 110 deg F or higher in the summer?
Can't see something with no fans surviving long in the attic. Now in the winter, heck yeah, but in the summer?
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
>thermite is actually very easy to make
Is it also very legal to make and detonate? I don't know about your jurisdiction, but in my law class I remember something against detonating explosives without a permit.
Thermite is not an explosive. It just makes an incredibly hot pool of molten metal.
Thermite = Powdered aluminum + rust (aka iron oxide). That's all there is to it.
Once you ignite it the oxygen moves from the iron to the aluminum. You get aluminum oxide, pure iron, and lots and lots of heat.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
They may not have "all the rech"
but they can easily bring along a
signal strength meter in the appropriate band
and wander around until they find the source
Powerline would be the answer.. how do you track that down?
just to figure out which branch it's on would require
tripping each circuit breaker one at a time until you know.
Then you have to rip out all the walls
bury it in your neighbors yard, tapped into his electricity, and they'll never find it
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Yep... you'd be hard-pressed to find a guy that got a rawer deal than Richard Jewell.
Crucified in the media, leaks from the FBI that he's a suspect... labeled a "gun nut" (most houses in Georgia have guns in them... so what?), fired, etc, etc.
He did win his lawsuit... but how much money does it take to make up for being pilloried like that? I'll bet it's more than he got...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
More to the point, since legal porn is legal, what sort of porn would you *NOT* want the cops to find?
/.'s suggested use for this device is insidious and despicable.
If you've got illegal porn (what would that be, kiddy porn?) then
I found it a despicable suggestion, anyway. Just what sort of porn would you *not* want the cops to find?
Disgusted.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
You can roll your own version of most innovations if you have the time and the inclination. However many people reach a point where their time is worth more to them than the money.
I'd rather pay the money for a TiVo that works out of the box, than spend time building a box that does the same thing.
I'd rather spend $500 on this box than spend $400 and several hours of my free time building and configuring a homebrew version.
Ironically, I guess, the time I would have been prepared to put in the effort would be the time before I knew how to do it. Then it would have been in interesting challenge. Now it would just be a chore.