Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!a80
From: a80@mindlink.UUCP (Greg Goss)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Musing on Constitutionality
Message-ID: <3108@mindlink.UUCP>
Date: 9 Sep 90 08:06:48 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Lines: 26

> rabbit@hyprion.ddmi.com writes:
> 
> In article <11608@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene You know - I
> wonder why the SS just doesn't get a computer expert to
> come with them to the site of the raid and duplicate the hard drive
> contents? Why do they need to take someone's machine?? ... And, I DON'T
> want to hear anything that implies that "Oh well, if we're raiding them,
> they must be guilty of something...."
> 

There are too many "tricks" to hide information.

You mentioned Poland.  One of the solidarity tricks was to circulate a floppy
with some report on tractor production or something boring on it.  Then you
take Norton and unerase a file with some innocuous name and read the
newsletter.  Then you erase it again and pass it on.

It is too easy to miss an entire partition of the HD that may not be mounted in
your default boot-up.  There may be an entire drive in the system that doesn't
show up unless you use a device driver of some sort.

Information could be stored in blocks marked "bad" in the appropriate tables.
I had a drive a year ago with 2 meg of bad sectors.   A 1/4 meg of information
could be hidden amongst that pretty easily.

.../greg