28 Nov
2018
28 Nov
'18
6:47 a.m.
On Nov 28, 2018, at 9:43 AM, Ethan via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
One of the documents hardware engineers have to generate is a "Statement of
Volatility" that lists every component in the system with persistent memory of any
kind. For each, it says what is in that memory, where it is located, and how (if it can
contain anything like user data or configuration settings) it can be erased or removed.
The NVRAM chip Gordon mentioned would show up in such an SOV.
paul
As an aside - once upon a time I worked for a
company that made their own Sparc boards to fit inside a supercomputer and several of them
were inside secure military/government establishments. Sometimes a board would fail and
have to go back for a fix - and then the RTC/NVRAM chip had to be removed because - you
know, those 64 bytes of battery backed RAM might just hold some state secret or
something...
Fun days.
-Gordon
Surprised they knew about it!