Chromebook
State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
31–40 of 68 posts
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#32It'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.
> It's frustrating that the author is using the word "stateless" because it usually means something different in the context of computer-related topics. Not really different. State is state.
Well then the premise is wrong. If state is state, then any useful computing device has state. The question is where (and if) that state is stored persistently.
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#33Of course, even with a truly airgapped computer, people have developed side channel attacks to exfiltrate information by listening to things not generally considered to be part of the "networking" portion of the computer, such as radio signals generated by the operation of the processor.
Or using distortion in WiFi signals to record keystrokes.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/08/keystroke_rec...
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#34I've started running Tails on my laptop on a daily basis. It's great. https://tails.boum.org/ It runs off a USB stick and presents a pristine system each time you boot. Modifications to the filesystem go on a ramdisk "overlay", which disappears as soon as you power it off. It does support "encrypted persistent storage", but there is quite fine-grained control over what things are allowed to go in it. In particular, n…
I would like it if laptops had a semi-persistent storage area that you could only flash after authenticating, and then you could enter a password if you needed to unlock your persistent data. It's a great way to ensure you don't get any viruses, but it seems a bit too inconvenient for everyday use.
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#35It'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.
Not clear from your comment what definition of "stateless" you mean, but it is clear from the HN title.
The author actually has to clarify what they meant in the paper, as RAM carries state as well.
> state-carrying (persistence-carrying)
So what would be more accurate, I think, is "Persistence considered harmful".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(computer_science)#Progr...
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#36I would like a phone/laptop where you can take sexy pictures and be sure they stay on the phone, and be sure they get deleted when you delete them.
Think I can get VC money for this idea?
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#37Chromebook
Then all your data belongs to the web app servers.
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#38It'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 meaning of the title was not obvious to me either. Stateless in programming means pure functional, so the first thing I imagined from the title is some sort of new pure functional CPU.
This laptop also has a state, the post-boot state is just fixed and repeatable. And, of course, the underlying technology is not different, it makes use of a lot of state, so using the word “stateless” here is certainly not the clearest language possible.
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#39I've started running Tails on my laptop on a daily basis. It's great. https://tails.boum.org/ It runs off a USB stick and presents a pristine system each time you boot. Modifications to the filesystem go on a ramdisk "overlay", which disappears as soon as you power it off. It does support "encrypted persistent storage", but there is quite fine-grained control over what things are allowed to go in it. In particular, n…
I would like it if laptops had a semi-persistent storage area that you could only flash after authenticating, and then you could enter a password if you needed to unlock your persistent data. It's a great way to ensure you don't get any viruses, but it seems a bit too inconvenient for everyday use.
Like Apple's secure enclave or Intel's SGX? Or a physical jumper which would require physical access to move?
Re: State considered harmful: A proposal for a stateless laptop (2015)
#40It'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.
Author doesn't speak native English; she's Polish.