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General Mac hardware discussions forum: FireWire can read/write your RAM?

by: Yog Sothoth March 8, 2008 2:08 PM PST

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FireWire can read/write your RAM?

by Yog Sothoth - 3/8/08 2:08 PM

I notice the security news that FireWire could be used to bypass your login password because it accesses your RAM.

That got me to thinking: Can you use FireWire to read/write the RAM of the 'puter next to you and could you use this "feature" to turn that RAM into a RAM disk for fast access?


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In fact, "drivers"

by R. Proffitt Moderator - 3/8/08 5:27 PM

In Reply to: FireWire can read/write your RAM? by Yog Sothoth

Usually run at elevated privileges. I'm going to stop short of a dissertation on OS security but note the ONE BIG THING. If you give me physical access to a machine, I'm in.

As to RAM DISKS, that's something of an non-solution in Unix based OSes. Please look for a RAM DISK for your OS if you must.

Bob


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I agree

by Yog Sothoth - 3/8/08 5:54 PM

In Reply to: In fact, "drivers" by R. Proffitt Moderator

That's true. For somebody who knows what they are doing, physical access is all it takes. That's why Consoles keep getting hacked to play backup versions of their games.

Even Unix would benefit from a fast RAM disk used to store frequently used programs, so I don't know why you claim it's not a solution.

If my idea would work, it's a great idea to turn older computers into RAM disks over FireWire to serve your main computer. Just swap out your 512 RAM and pop in 4x2GB = 8GB RAM disk. Get two cheap computers and a FireWire RAID card and you'll get around 200MB/s bandwidth from that solution!

A similar idea is the Gigabyte i-RAM, but they don't make those anymore so you have to be creative!


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Sorry, I've been in the Linux os dev...

by R. Proffitt Moderator - 3/8/08 7:38 PM

In Reply to: I agree by Yog Sothoth

"Even Unix would benefit from a fast RAM disk used to store frequently used programs, so I don't know why you claim it's not a solution"

I refuse to go there. Please dive into the old discussions about this. By you dismissing this OS's cache system you may be showing you haven't been under the hood.

Bob


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