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Re: [ProgSoc] A hypothetical




On Fri, 8 Oct 2004, jedd wrote:

On Fri October 8 2004 11:11 am, Matthew Beauregard wrote:
] Let's imagine that you have a Powerbook that's just come back from law
] enforcement, and you don't know what happened to it while it was away.
] It could be anything from sitting on a shelf for three months while
] the batteries slowly flattened, to being picked over by Real Spooks.
] What would you do, to get clues about what was done, and avoid any
] surprises that may have been installed?

I'd reinstall everything from known sources. Seriously. Everything.

Actually someone suggested something ...

If you had a full contents listing from before they borrowed it, then you'd
have something to compare it against.  In the absence of same, it becomes
a fairly speculative (read pointless) exercise, IMO, to try to work out
what they may have done to the machine.

Yes but if they've put spyware (literally) on it, how about, before returning to normal use, just connecting it to the internet via a sniffer for a week.


If you don't spot any spurious packets coming from your machine, then at least you can be >50% certain they didn't mean to infect it.

But wipe it anyway.

Either that or avoid ever using the floppy.

Floppy? Eh?

CK.

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