On Thu, 11 May 1995 , Brian wrote > I have also heard that the hardware password (and all the other ROM > settings) will get wiped if you remove the battery for a while, but I > haven't tried it.(Haven't had the need... :>) > Does anyone know? This is definitely the case on a NeXT, and I would think that it holds true for most machines (although I have only ever had to do it on my NeXT). I think that we're getting pretty far from the scope of bugtraq, though. Let's just say that if someone has the opportunity to turn a machine off, open it up, pull the battery, and wait for some amount of time greater than 15 minutes but less than 12 hours (my two data points, I'm not sure what the minimum required time actually is) that machine ain't secure. :-) If your machine has a batery "fixed" to the motherboard by two wires, you can use another wire to connect both batery wires for a while. This will desable any ROM settings. Vitor ---- Vitor Fernandes <vitor@uminho.pt> Comunicacoes por Computador Univesidade do Minho Portugal