Why not use a normal laptop, but enable it to boot from an encrypted partition of an external drive?
State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
11–20 of 68 posts
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#12Can't this kinda be achieved with Windows and Windows Server with AD? You login to the server and it downloads the content for the session and when you logout the content is removed from the local computer?
I remember when in school they used to have this, which made logins take forever.
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#13It's frustrating that the author is using the word "stateless" because it usually means something different in the context of computer-related topics. Maybe the title of the paper should have been something like "A proposal for an ephemeral-storage laptop" or something along those lines.
Conversely, it's frustrating that you reference some definition instead of just stating it. Are you referring to stateless (web) applications? Wouldn't that also exactly fit your other "ephemeral storage" definition? You surely don't propose that those applications don't keep state while processing a single request. This proposed laptop only keeps state for a single boot.
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#14It's frustrating that the author is using the word "stateless" because it usually means something different in the context of computer-related topics. Maybe the title of the paper should have been something like "A proposal for an ephemeral-storage laptop" or something along those lines.
The author is a well-known computer security developer, I'm sure they're aware of the alternative meanings of state when deciding on the term.
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#15Can't this kinda be achieved with Windows and Windows Server with AD? You login to the server and it downloads the content for the session and when you logout the content is removed from the local computer? I remember when in school they used to have this, which made logins take forever.
That's also the model of the popular anonymity OS Tails, but if you'd read the paper OS-level state is not being discussed at all.
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#16Interesting! I hadn't seen this work before. Honestly this seems exactly like the kind of service that would get heckled on HN in the classic Dropbox-Show-HN style. So much so that a couple of my friends and I tried to build something like this a few years ago, essentially outsourcing the end-to-end-encrypted transport of sensitive information via a user-friendly service. We thought a user should be able to designate data for transport, and then click a button, and it gets moved off the machine until some conditions are met at a later time (once you're through the border or whatever) when the data gets moved back onto the machine. Super user-friendly and built for plausible deniability. Our effort sort of trailed off into nothingness in the face of so many other random cool project ideas, in that particular way which probably most of you reading this know quite well. Though as much as people like to joke and cajole about this, it's actually a pretty interesting problem and an excellent thought experiment. If you shed your expectations, it'll send you down some pretty cool rabbit holes. PS: We sometimes use "Seems like a great Dropbox Show HN idea" as a kind of funny emphatic for project ideas when they go on the whiteboard.
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#17Interesting! I hadn't seen this work before. Honestly this seems exactly like the kind of service that would get heckled on HN in the classic Dropbox-Show-HN style. So much so that a couple of my friends and I tried to build something like this a few years ago, essentially outsourcing the end-to-end-encrypted transport of sensitive information via a user-friendly service. We thought a user should be able to designate…
I don't see the connection with "HN+dropbox". Dropbox was/is easy to do by yourself as a techie depending on your usecase.
This is not easy/possible at all and the closest I can think of, which has long ways to go in pursuit of this (and they aren't pursuing this directly (I think)), is something like NixOS - which seems to be quite popular on HN.
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#18Interesting! I hadn't seen this work before. Honestly this seems exactly like the kind of service that would get heckled on HN in the classic Dropbox-Show-HN style. So much so that a couple of my friends and I tried to build something like this a few years ago, essentially outsourcing the end-to-end-encrypted transport of sensitive information via a user-friendly service. We thought a user should be able to designate…
I don't see the connection with "HN+dropbox". Dropbox was/is easy to do by yourself as a techie depending on your usecase. This is not easy/possible at all and the closest I can think of, which has long ways to go in pursuit of this (and they aren't pursuing this directly (I think)), is something like NixOS - which seems to be quite popular on HN.
That's the joke [0]. But otherwise this is what I meant by "shed your expectations". Even if it were possible to prove something was not possible, how would you build it? There might be some free money in there somewhere.
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#19It's frustrating that the author is using the word "stateless" because it usually means something different in the context of computer-related topics. Maybe the title of the paper should have been something like "A proposal for an ephemeral-storage laptop" or something along those lines.
What different do you mean? In computer-related topics state always refered to the ability to change or not change after an interaction has finished. I don't see how he used a different usage?
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see the connection with "HN+dropbox". Dropbox was/is easy to do by yourself as a techie depending on your usecase. This is not easy/possible at all and the closest I can think of, which has long ways to go in pursuit of this (and they aren't pursuing this directly (I think)), is something like NixOS - which seems to be quite popular on HN.
That's the joke [0]. But otherwise this is what I meant by "shed your expectations". Even if it were possible to prove something was not possible, how would you build it? There might be some free money in there somewhere. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
I know(? it feels like I'm missing something). It is just that I feel the opposite. This is exactly the type of project that HN would like. And not heckle, because there are no similarities with the Dropbox case.