-----Original Message----- From: Arun Khan Sent: 17/06/2013, 09:47 To: "GNU/Linux Users Group, Mumbai, India" Subject: Re: [ILUG-BOM] Deleting read only partition data.

On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 12:08 AM, gnulinuxist@gmail.com wrote:

Friends,

With so much espionage happening in computers, I was wondering whether a read only mounted partition is read only by software only or is there an electrical lock on the hdd, which does not seem possible for multi-partition disks as another partition may be writeable.

No electrical lock. Anyone with root/sudo (with rights to mount) can do 'mount -o remount,rw <fs_dir_tree>'

Can a malicious software gain control of the electrical side of the hdd and modify or delete data, even on a read only mounted partition? For the military then, would it be better to use an entire disk as a single partition and lock it down electrically?

The 3.5" disks have pin outs, one of these pairs can be jumpered to make the *entire* disk 'ro' - this takes care of remote root/sudo scenarios. Anyone with physical access can easily remove the jumper and make the *entire* disk 'rw'