Hard disk will have hackers seeing double
Tuesday, July 23, 2002 by mcs2k1 | Discussion: WinCustomize News
Hackers will be unable to attack Web sites protected by a new security system unless they can change the laws of physics, according to Naoto Takano, chief executive officer of Scarabs, a Japanese company.
The company claims that it has developed a hard disk with two heads that prevents disk files published on the Web from being altered by hackers.
Scarabs put two heads on the hard disk, a read-only head that is connected via one cable to a Web server for people to browse content on the disk file and a read/write head that is connected by another cable to a PC for administrators who renew the data. Internet users have access to the disk file only through the read-only head and so there is no physical way they can go into the system and rewrite the data.
The original idea of a hard disk having two heads emerged around 1985, when Takano was a scientific researcher. Analysis of data took a long time because all the data needed to be written to a drive before it could be read out again. If the hard disk was fitted with a read-only head, which could start reading data for analysis while the read/write head was still writing data on the disk, analysis could be done faster. At that time, however, the idea was never implemented.
"I realized about three to four years ago, this could be used for server system security on the Internet," Takano says.
The company succeeded in making a prototype last December. Since then, it has been showing real-time video streaming images on the Web.
In the prototype, each head works independently, and as long as both the Internet server and the internal company PC are running operating systems which can read the same disk format, it could run on any operating system, Takano says. The prototype currently works on Windows NT4.0 CD-ROM running Active Server Pages and IIS, Takano says.
It costs around $863 to build the simplest version of this system, Takano says.
Source: http://www.neowin.net
The company claims that it has developed a hard disk with two heads that prevents disk files published on the Web from being altered by hackers.
Scarabs put two heads on the hard disk, a read-only head that is connected via one cable to a Web server for people to browse content on the disk file and a read/write head that is connected by another cable to a PC for administrators who renew the data. Internet users have access to the disk file only through the read-only head and so there is no physical way they can go into the system and rewrite the data.
The original idea of a hard disk having two heads emerged around 1985, when Takano was a scientific researcher. Analysis of data took a long time because all the data needed to be written to a drive before it could be read out again. If the hard disk was fitted with a read-only head, which could start reading data for analysis while the read/write head was still writing data on the disk, analysis could be done faster. At that time, however, the idea was never implemented.
"I realized about three to four years ago, this could be used for server system security on the Internet," Takano says.
The company succeeded in making a prototype last December. Since then, it has been showing real-time video streaming images on the Web.
In the prototype, each head works independently, and as long as both the Internet server and the internal company PC are running operating systems which can read the same disk format, it could run on any operating system, Takano says. The prototype currently works on Windows NT4.0 CD-ROM running Active Server Pages and IIS, Takano says.
It costs around $863 to build the simplest version of this system, Takano says.
Source: http://www.neowin.net
Nakor
Reply #2 Tuesday, July 23, 2002 5:18 PM
Reply #2 Tuesday, July 23, 2002 5:18 PM
You'll forgive me if I'm less than impressed by this, since I could burn my website to a CD and essentially have the same thing (or just figure out what to jumper so the HD is read only).
Ian Hanschen
Reply #3 Tuesday, July 23, 2002 5:20 PM
Reply #3 Tuesday, July 23, 2002 5:20 PM
echoing a slashdot mention: since databases have to be read-write, there will still be a point of entry.
grayhaze
Reply #4 Tuesday, July 23, 2002 5:44 PM
Reply #4 Tuesday, July 23, 2002 5:44 PM
Also, how many web sites are maintained on a machine in local proximity to the server they're stored on? Most web design and development these days is carried out through a remote connection to the web server, thereby rendering this whole concept redundant.
They're always good ideas until you actually speak to someone who works in the field you're aiming your product at...
They're always good ideas until you actually speak to someone who works in the field you're aiming your product at...
TheParadigm
Reply #6 Thursday, July 25, 2002 2:20 PM
Reply #6 Thursday, July 25, 2002 2:20 PM
mm practically useless. These guys sound like they made this without actually USING the internet first.
apurvarc
Reply #7 Thursday, July 25, 2002 3:27 PM
Reply #7 Thursday, July 25, 2002 3:27 PM
well.. this would probably work for static websites, with no change in content etc, but sites like this are rare nowadays... for example, wincustomize wouldnt be protected with it cuz its scripts are continuously writing to the disk. So if there is an application or a script that can write to the disk, a hacker can too... there is probably more to this technology that what we see here, cuz the guys must have done this homework, but from wat it looks like here, it sounds pretty foolish. Physically seperating out the writing and reading mechanisms really doesnt work, cuz most applications will need to write something on the disk to run.
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Reply #1 Tuesday, July 23, 2002 5:15 PM