OT: Re: Security question (sort of)

From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis_at_mcmanis.com>
Date: Fri Mar 19 23:16:28 1999

At 08:46 PM 3/19/99 -0800, Sellam wrote:
>Well, again, unless someone comes forth to edumacate me, there's typically
>no way to destroy hardware from software, unless you count that POKE from
>BASIC on the PET.

"modern" computers have writable BIOS "roms." Malevolent crackers are
writing bombs these days that scribble bits in nasty places in your BIOS.
One of the worst is called "last place AWARD" that destroys an AWARD BIOS
and resets your computer. No bios, no boot, no way to flash a new bios
without some fairly specialized equipment (to do in circuit Flash programming.)

--Chuck
Received on Fri Mar 19 1999 - 23:16:28 GMT