My spin on the flash bios interface...

Aaron Tiensivu (tiensivu@pilot.msu.edu)
Thu, 12 Feb 1998 14:53:16 -0500


I might be a little on the paranoid side about my system, but the prospect of
having the flash bios open as a device to use bothers me. I'd assume that if it
makes it into the official kernel, I hope that it is not included with default
configurations. I can forsee a hacker breaking my box and nuking my flash bios.
Not cool.

Binding it to a SysReq key might make it a "local only" type of function, but
I'm not sure how much real value /dev/flashbios has overall. Most BIOSs are
issued by motherboard manufacturers with various flash utilities. There are a
bunch of different types of flash bios's too, so, if you choose the wrong
brand/type/etc, bye bye system (until you do the hot-bios swap).

I might not be totally informed on this issue, so let me have it if I'm wrong
with any of this. :)

Just figured I'd voice my opinion.

@

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu