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Ask Slashdot: Why Are There No True Dual-System Laptops Or Tablet Computers?
dryriver writes: This is not a question about dual-booting OSs -- having 2 or more different OSs installed on the same machine. Rather, imagine that I'm a business person or product engineer or management consultant with a Windows 10 laptop that has confidential client emails, word documents, financial spreadsheets, product CAD files or similar on it. Business stuff that needs to stay confidential per my employment contract or NDAs or any other agreement I may have signed. When I have to access the internet from an untrusted internet access point that somebody else controls -- free WiFi in a restaurant, cafe or airport lounge in a foreign country for example -- I do not want my main Win 10 OS, Intel/AMD laptop hardware or other software exposed to this untrusted internet connection at all. Rather, I want to use a 2nd and completely separate System On Chip or SOC inside my Laptop running Linux or Android to do my internet accessing. In other words, I want to be able to switch to a small 2nd standalone Android/Linux computer inside my Windows 10 laptop, so that I can do my emailing and internet browsing just about anywhere without any worries at all, because in that mode, only the small SOC hardware and its RAM is exposed to the internet, not any of the rest of my laptop or tablet. A hardware switch on the laptop casing would let me turn the 2nd SOC computer on when I need to use it, and it would take over the screen, trackpad and keyboard when used. But the SOC computer would have no physical connection at all to my main OS, BIOS, CPU, RAM, SSD, USB ports and so on. Does something like this exist at all (if so, I've never seen it...)? And if not, isn't this a major oversight? Wouldn't it be worth sticking a 200 Dollar Android or Linux SOC computer into a laptop computer if that enables you access internet anywhere, without any worries that your main OS and hardware can be compromised by 3rd parties while you do this?
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actually some companies have indeed exactly tried that, with products such as SplashTop:
some of the first Dell laptops to feature "Latitude On" where exactly that: a special custom SOC in a specially modified mini-PCIe card, that was able to run some restricted Linux (a web kiosk and a few built in apps. basically a distant ancestror of the chromebook concept), while accessing the nornal regular laptop screen and keyboard (but not much beyond that and certainly no access to any Sata mass storage).
it had a few minor advantage (mainly, instant power-on, and lower power usage of the SoC compared to the main CPU)
but a lot of disadvantage (complexity and restrictions due to the switching concept)
and cannot be used at the same time as the main CPU with Windows.
eventually, later version of "Latitude On" evolves into exaclty what you're suggesting: the mini-PCIe card evolved into an SSD with a Linux installation on it, and the main CPU simply dual booted into either the Linux installation on SSD or the Windows installation on SATA HDD.
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If truly worried, I'd just have a dedicated machine where the sensitive OS runs in a VM. You can even set up some secure remote access so you don't have to lug two machines around everywhere. In fact, I'd consider multiple separate VMs, one for each client, so a compromise doesn't mean everything is lost, just whatever is opened at the time.
Attacks where something jumping across or out of VMs is extremely rare. It can happen, but this is not a big attack vector, relatively.
Plus, if you store your VM on an eSATA or USB 3.1 drive, when done with it, just unplug the drive and toss it somewhere secure. $200 buys you a FIPS compliant external SSD with hardware encryption from Apricorn. This takes care of the DAR (data at test) element, regardless of the OS. From there, a PC with VirtualBox, Hyper-V, VMWare, or Parallels can run the VM.