Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!crdgw1!sungod!davidsen
From: davidsen@sungod.crd.ge.com (ody)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Preventing Floppy Boots
Message-ID: <1710@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Date: 16 Aug 89 17:06:45 GMT
References: <1989Aug15.183532.27998@ee.rochester.edu>
Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Distribution: na
Organization: General Electric Corp. R&D, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 18

If (1) the system is an AT, and (b) you can live with one floppy disk,
make it the B drive and change setup to show it as such. *most* systems
will not boot off the B drive. This assumes that the physical security
is at least minimal (case lock) so the floppy can't be recabled by
unauthorized personell.

Note: before the AT came out I saw one non-disclosure, and suggested
that a third position be added to the key switch to boot from hard disk
only. IBM told me there would be no market, since "nobody does anything
important on a PC, anyway." If they had done it, it would be standard on
all clones today.

Watch out for password systems, if you lose the password you may *really
lose*. I saw this on a PS/2, where 2 months of work was flushed for want
of a password.
	bill davidsen		(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM)
  {uunet | philabs}!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me