Slashdot Mirror
Build Your Own Electronic Key Card Lock
edBX writes "GideonTech.com has a new guide up on how to make your own electronic lock using a key card. Built using a phototransistor, infrared-emitting diode and a few ICs, they are able to turn on their computer using a punched out phone card."
Why isn't there a "Build your own" section like "Ask Slashdot" or "Apache" ? Maybe even a "Slashdot How-To Guide" could turn out useful.
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Free your mind - Flush your toilet
But Mr. Anderson, what good is your custom made electronic lock when you can no longer find your card?
This device will keep the power switch safe
from anybody that does not understand electricity.
Anybody else can bypass the unit with a handy
suitably reshapable piece of conductive material.
Probably a piece of wire would do.
Those whom the computer is protected against
are probably not a threat.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Why not just use a BIOS password. There are way more than 255 possible passowrds. If someone can figure out how to open the case and reset the bios, they can figure out how to connect 2 wires to bypass that device. A bios password is cheaper and more reliable.
This isnt all that great of a security measure, however its good to see slashdot posting home project kind of things again. I dont know if its just me, but there haven't been many lately and I like to see what people are up to and building, its a lot better than all of this legal and corporate stuff thats been taking over my monitor. Not that I dont love my SCO fix, or yey some senator is in favor of open source, but hey even though our interests are getting lots of press now, we can't forget things like this. I don't know if anyone else agrees, but thats how I feel.
Cheers,
Steve
In soviet russia, key card punches YOU!
With great numbers come great responsibility!
Linux Disc Encryption Howto
What it is: A method of encrypting a hard drive, and using a USB key-drive device and passphrase to decrypt the hard drive at boot.
Why: To protect computers (especially laptops) from unauthorized access to the hard disk. Bios passwords, login passwords, and the above slashdot story do not prevent the hard drive from being removed from the machine and the data read in another machine.
How it works: The laptop's drive is AES encrypted. At boot, the computer needs the key drive with the passkey and the matching passphrase to transparently decrypt the drive. It keeps a copy of the passkey and passphrase in memory, so the USB drive may be removed after booting. It only decrypts the files that it is using, so if power is lost at any moment, all data will remain protected.
Why its cool: Its high quality encryption, OS tools, and protects your laptop's files from being accessed if its stolen. What more do you need?
( IMHO, way more deserving of a slashdot story then a simple electronic hack that can be bypassed by anyone with electronics knowledge. )