[OpenBIOS] Secure BIOS for voting?

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

Nick Couchman wrote:
>>>> On 2013/07/19 at 06:01, <SAVIOCvs at aol.com> wrote: 
>> I developed a voting system (see _www.SAVIOC.com_ (http://www.SAVIOC.com) ) 
>> that uses ordinary old PCs,  yet is more transparent and trustworthy than 
>> anything else in use  today.  All software, including the operating system 
>> (FreeDOS) boots from a  floppy that can be verified by hash code.  The PC 
>> never uses the hard  drive, and doesn't even need one.  Trustworthiness 
>> comes 
>> from people  with different interests being able to prevent each other from 
>> doing anything  fraudulent.  I think the only significant potential 
>> vulnerability is that  someone with physical access to the machines could 
>> install a 
>> malicious  BIOS.  Learning about the OpenBIOS project gave me hope of 
>> overcoming that  vulnerability.
>>  
>> (1)  Is my hope justified?  Can a PC be booted from a floppy that  
>> completely replaces the native BIOS in RAM, and then loads FreeDOS?  (Can  
>> the 
>> possibility of a malicious BIOS be made a non-issue?)

No, because you cannot prove that the native BIOS doesn't include some 
facility that "infects" the replacement loaded from floppy.

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]