Can volatile RAM still contain evidence?

[GreenXenon]

Hi:

Can informating stored in volatile RAM still be recovered after the
computer is turned off? I remember reading something on a forensics
website that the evidence is not only on the platters of the HDD but
also on the disk cache chips and the volatile RAM chips in the PC.

Even if the PC is turned-off, the chips still contain sufficient
amount of info that can be recoverd by top-secret devils of the NSA
and Central Security Service. Apparenty they have some devices that
can read EXTREMELY-WEAK electric signals from volatile RAM chips and
recover what was lost then the power was turned-off. Is this true? If
so, how to prevent this while still expressing my socially-
unacceptable opinions on the internet?

Are there any RAM chips that are PURELY-VOLATILE and that will lose
all info when power is lost? If so, I'm thinking of buying a PC which
uses these chips. As soon as I turn off the comp, no info remains at
all.

This is another reason I was discussing about RAM chips in another
thread a few of minutes ago.

Please note that I do not plan to write anything illegal on the net --
no threats, no confessions, etc. However, I would like to express my
opinions in chat rooms w/out facing negative consequences.

My opinions differ from that of the general public and I want to
forcefully-express my vulgar, obscene, and socially-unacceptable
opinions in chat rooms [such as Yahoo-chat, ICQ, IRC, chat-zone, and
spin-chat] without being falsely-accused of crime.

While what I would like to write in chat-rooms is not illegal, public
pressure would force authorities to do something. Public pressure
might also force the enactment of new unjust laws possibly rendering
my speeches illegal in the future.

Sometimes authorities are forced to arrest and imprison innocent law-
abiding citizens because of public outrage. At heart, the authorites
don't want to jail innocent people but they have no choice. Society,
being the evil scum it is, will overpower the police and force them to
illegaly imprison me. Crowds of sadistic human beings will overturn
police cars and start harming the police, if the police don't
illegaly-
arrest me. Sort of like a lynch-mob mentality against the police and
me.

I need protection from this unlawful, public-forced treatment.

Sometimes society and the law are on opposite ends. This is one of
them.

That is why I would like to get a PC that doesn't have any RAM that is
"purely-volatile" by my above definition.

Because I am a complete law-abiding citizen, I have nothing to hide
from the police. However, I have everything to hide from the public
and society.

In lynch-mob situations, police are powerless to do what they know is
right. The cops are helpless must be a slave to the evil society.

I respect the law, but I hate society.

For the HDD platters, even after you thoroughly delete, overwrite and
format a gazillion times, you're still on thin ice. The NSA and
Central Security Service have equipment they can use to recover data
from the magnetic platters on the HDD. The equipment they use is
*extremely* sensitive to *extremely* weak magnetic signals on the
magnetic platters. The only way to truly get rid off the data is to
heat the platters beyond Curie point. The cache chips in the HD might
also need to be burnt.

I am worried similar sensitive devices could be used to read the
extremely-weak electric signals present in the volatile RAM chips and
disc cache chips.

Due to the laws of physics, I suspect that the volatile RAM info might
-- to some extent -- exist even after the system is turned off. Sure
the wattage of those electric signals maybe *extremely*-low after shut
down, but that does not mean the signals are not there anymore -- they
are just way too weak to be detected and analyzed by ordinary means.
At the quantum level, the differences in wattage levels which
constitute what was the original volatile RAM info will continue to be
there in the chip.

I'm hoping this is just my paranoia and not true.

Also, the disc cache chips are another grave concern to me, they also
store RAM -- just not nearly as much as the platters of the HDD.

I wonder if there are any PCs for sale anywhere that are free of any
NVRAM devices and still work. The disdvantage of this is that nothing
can be saved. The advantage is, malware can't be planted in it. Such a
PC could connect to the internet and store text on websites -- for
example, I could 'save' something by emailing it to myself and then
accessing it later.


Thanks,

Radium

 

[RobV]

Hi:

Can informating stored in volatile RAM still be recovered after the
computer is turned off? I remember reading something on a forensics
website that the evidence is not only on the platters of the HDD but
also on the disk cache chips and the volatile RAM chips in the PC.

Even if the PC is turned-off, the chips still contain sufficient
amount of info that can be recoverd by top-secret devils of the NSA
and Central Security Service. Apparenty they have some devices that
can read EXTREMELY-WEAK electric signals from volatile RAM chips and
recover what was lost then the power was turned-off. Is this true? If
so, how to prevent this while still expressing my socially-
unacceptable opinions on the internet?

Are there any RAM chips that are PURELY-VOLATILE and that will lose
all info when power is lost? If so, I'm thinking of buying a PC which
uses these chips. As soon as I turn off the comp, no info remains at
all.

This is another reason I was discussing about RAM chips in another
thread a few of minutes ago.

Please note that I do not plan to write anything illegal on the net --
no threats, no confessions, etc. However, I would like to express my
opinions in chat rooms w/out facing negative consequences.

My opinions differ from that of the general public and I want to
forcefully-express my vulgar, obscene, and socially-unacceptable
opinions in chat rooms [such as Yahoo-chat, ICQ, IRC, chat-zone, and
spin-chat] without being falsely-accused of crime.

While what I would like to write in chat-rooms is not illegal, public
pressure would force authorities to do something. Public pressure
might also force the enactment of new unjust laws possibly rendering
my speeches illegal in the future.

Sometimes authorities are forced to arrest and imprison innocent law-
abiding citizens because of public outrage. At heart, the authorites
don't want to jail innocent people but they have no choice. Society,
being the evil scum it is, will overpower the police and force them to
illegaly imprison me. Crowds of sadistic human beings will overturn
police cars and start harming the police, if the police don't
illegaly-
arrest me. Sort of like a lynch-mob mentality against the police and
me.

I need protection from this unlawful, public-forced treatment.

Sometimes society and the law are on opposite ends. This is one of
them.

That is why I would like to get a PC that doesn't have any RAM that is
"purely-volatile" by my above definition.

Because I am a complete law-abiding citizen, I have nothing to hide
from the police. However, I have everything to hide from the public
and society.

In lynch-mob situations, police are powerless to do what they know is
right. The cops are helpless must be a slave to the evil society.

I respect the law, but I hate society.

For the HDD platters, even after you thoroughly delete, overwrite and
format a gazillion times, you're still on thin ice. The NSA and
Central Security Service have equipment they can use to recover data
from the magnetic platters on the HDD. The equipment they use is
*extremely* sensitive to *extremely* weak magnetic signals on the
magnetic platters. The only way to truly get rid off the data is to
heat the platters beyond Curie point. The cache chips in the HD might
also need to be burnt.

I am worried similar sensitive devices could be used to read the
extremely-weak electric signals present in the volatile RAM chips and
disc cache chips.

Due to the laws of physics, I suspect that the volatile RAM info might
-- to some extent -- exist even after the system is turned off. Sure
the wattage of those electric signals maybe *extremely*-low after shut
down, but that does not mean the signals are not there anymore -- they
are just way too weak to be detected and analyzed by ordinary means.
At the quantum level, the differences in wattage levels which
constitute what was the original volatile RAM info will continue to be
there in the chip.

I'm hoping this is just my paranoia and not true.

Also, the disc cache chips are another grave concern to me, they also
store RAM -- just not nearly as much as the platters of the HDD.

I wonder if there are any PCs for sale anywhere that are free of any
NVRAM devices and still work. The disdvantage of this is that nothing
can be saved. The advantage is, malware can't be planted in it. Such a
PC could connect to the internet and store text on websites -- for
example, I could 'save' something by emailing it to myself and then
accessing it later.


Thanks,

Radium

At the quantum level?
What's the common med for paranoia these days?

 

[nemo_outis]

Can informating stored in volatile RAM still be recovered after the
computer is turned off?

You are presumably reacting 10 months late to the paper:

Lest We Remember: Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys
http://citp.princeton.edu/pub/coldboot.pdf

I and many others consider this paper to be sensationalist and even
somewhat dishonest, and are especially dismayed that it was thrust out in
a shameless self-promoting way without peer review. The kindest thing
that can be said for it is that, while it introduced nothing new, it
reminded people of a long-known effect, RAM remanence.

It has been known at least snce the 1970s that RAM preserves state for
some time after removal of power (RAM is, after all, essentially just
capacitors) and the the length of time before full discharge is extended
by cooling.

With that out of the way, it can be said that, for most modern RAM
memory, waiting about a minute after power off is more than sufficient to
ensure that RAM is not recoverable. (If you think you may be subject to a
no-knock raid, harden your machine with automatic shutoff and obstacles
to memory access that will take at least a minute.)

For extreme paranoids the following "double shutdown" drill removes all
doubt: Shut off the computer normally, reboot it from a CD and run a
memory zeroisation program, and then shut down for the second final time.
(If your BIOS supports a "long memory check on POST" option, then the
shutdown-reboot-shutdown-again drill does not require a CD, zeroisation
software, etc. Just shutdown-reboot with long memory test-shutdown).

For learning about additional subtleties, google is your friend.

Regards,

 

[ShadowTek]

I don't want to encourage you to express anything vulgar and obscene in
public: most of us find it perfectly possible to express our opinions
without,

Not everything considered "vulgar" or "obscene" by authorities is also
considered as such by rest of the population.

In some places, the words "Tienanmen Square Massacre" is not just
considered vulgar and obscene by authorities, but it is a punishable
crime.

 

[GreenXenon]

If those you have
insulted collect their pitchforks and torches and come around as a lynch
mob, then more power to them.

The stuff I would like to write in chat rooms are not insulting,
hurtful, or offensive -- just extremely unacceptable by societal
norms.

As individuals, no one reading the stuff I right will have any at-
heart desire to harm me. However, if they see me, then they will be
forced by society's "herd mentality" to torture me to death.

One of the evil rules of society is, if you don't mistreat a social
outcast, then you become a social outcast. So that is what would force
people to lynch me -- even though they don't want to.

At heart, the individuals reading my chats will have nothing against
me. But because what I write is so socially-unacceptable, they will
feel the need to abuse me, in order to preserve their social status.

 

[Baron]

Hi:

Can informating stored in volatile RAM still be recovered after the
computer is turned off? I remember reading something on a forensics
website that the evidence is not only on the platters of the HDD but
also on the disk cache chips and the volatile RAM chips in the PC.

Even if the PC is turned-off, the chips still contain sufficient
amount of info that can be recoverd by top-secret devils of the NSA
and Central Security Service. Apparenty they have some devices that
can read EXTREMELY-WEAK electric signals from volatile RAM chips and
recover what was lost then the power was turned-off. Is this true? If
so, how to prevent this while still expressing my socially-
unacceptable opinions on the internet?

Are there any RAM chips that are PURELY-VOLATILE and that will lose
all info when power is lost? If so, I'm thinking of buying a PC which
uses these chips. As soon as I turn off the comp, no info remains at
all.

This is another reason I was discussing about RAM chips in another
thread a few of minutes ago.

Please note that I do not plan to write anything illegal on the net --
no threats, no confessions, etc. However, I would like to express my
opinions in chat rooms w/out facing negative consequences.

My opinions differ from that of the general public and I want to
forcefully-express my vulgar, obscene, and socially-unacceptable
opinions in chat rooms [such as Yahoo-chat, ICQ, IRC, chat-zone, and
spin-chat] without being falsely-accused of crime.

While what I would like to write in chat-rooms is not illegal, public
pressure would force authorities to do something. Public pressure
might also force the enactment of new unjust laws possibly rendering
my speeches illegal in the future.

Sometimes authorities are forced to arrest and imprison innocent law-
abiding citizens because of public outrage. At heart, the authorites
don't want to jail innocent people but they have no choice. Society,
being the evil scum it is, will overpower the police and force them to
illegaly imprison me. Crowds of sadistic human beings will overturn
police cars and start harming the police, if the police don't
illegaly-
arrest me. Sort of like a lynch-mob mentality against the police and
me.

I need protection from this unlawful, public-forced treatment.

Sometimes society and the law are on opposite ends. This is one of
them.

That is why I would like to get a PC that doesn't have any RAM that is
"purely-volatile" by my above definition.

Because I am a complete law-abiding citizen, I have nothing to hide
from the police. However, I have everything to hide from the public
and society.

In lynch-mob situations, police are powerless to do what they know is
right. The cops are helpless must be a slave to the evil society.

I respect the law, but I hate society.

For the HDD platters, even after you thoroughly delete, overwrite and
format a gazillion times, you're still on thin ice. The NSA and
Central Security Service have equipment they can use to recover data
from the magnetic platters on the HDD. The equipment they use is
*extremely* sensitive to *extremely* weak magnetic signals on the
magnetic platters. The only way to truly get rid off the data is to
heat the platters beyond Curie point. The cache chips in the HD might
also need to be burnt.

I am worried similar sensitive devices could be used to read the
extremely-weak electric signals present in the volatile RAM chips and
disc cache chips.

Due to the laws of physics, I suspect that the volatile RAM info might
-- to some extent -- exist even after the system is turned off. Sure
the wattage of those electric signals maybe *extremely*-low after shut
down, but that does not mean the signals are not there anymore -- they
are just way too weak to be detected and analyzed by ordinary means.
At the quantum level, the differences in wattage levels which
constitute what was the original volatile RAM info will continue to be
there in the chip.

I'm hoping this is just my paranoia and not true.

Also, the disc cache chips are another grave concern to me, they also
store RAM -- just not nearly as much as the platters of the HDD.

I wonder if there are any PCs for sale anywhere that are free of any
NVRAM devices and still work. The disdvantage of this is that nothing
can be saved. The advantage is, malware can't be planted in it. Such a
PC could connect to the internet and store text on websites -- for
example, I could 'save' something by emailing it to myself and then
accessing it later.


Thanks,

Radium

I think that you are being too paranoid ! You probably have more to
fear from your ISP's records of your traffic over however long they are
obliged to keep them ! Most countries now legally oblige the ISP to
record and retain them for some minimum period.

 

[Unruh]

The stuff I would like to write in chat rooms are not insulting,
hurtful, or offensive -- just extremely unacceptable by societal
norms.

???? You write in chat rooms where the stuff is saved forever, and are
worried that someone may be able to read the stuff from you ram. Can you
perhaps seen something totally bizzare in this? You think maybe that chat
rooms are like chatting with a friend on Hampstead Heath? It is not. Every
bite is recorded and saved forever. You will never ever be able to disown
it as yours.

As individuals, no one reading the stuff I right will have any at-
heart desire to harm me. However, if they see me, then they will be
forced by society's "herd mentality" to torture me to death.

One of the evil rules of society is, if you don't mistreat a social
outcast, then you become a social outcast. So that is what would force
people to lynch me -- even though they don't want to.

At heart, the individuals reading my chats will have nothing against
me. But because what I write is so socially-unacceptable, they will
feel the need to abuse me, in order to preserve their social status.

You are like the Bellman (Hunting of the snark) that if you repeat it three
times it is true?

 

[GreenXenon]

???? You write in chat rooms where the stuff is saved forever
You think maybe that chat
rooms are like chatting with a friend on Hampstead Heath? It is not. Every
bite is recorded and saved forever. You will never ever be able to disown
it as yours.

The stuff I write maybe saved forever but...

1. None of what I would like to write is illegal

2. I can post from a wireless internet cafe and add an extra defense
of Mac-Spoofing and IP-spoofing. Right?

Each time I log on to the internet, use a different MAC address and
different IP address. MAC addresses can be cloned and emulated in
software as opposed to using the real hardware MAC address branded
into the network card.

If my laptop is NVRAM-free, cache-free and the above apply, then it
will be very difficult to identify/locate me. Right?

Also, a tempest-shield would add benefit in that those NSA/Central-
Security-Service creeps who drive around in vans scanning for leaked
radio-frequency info will have a significantly harder time oppressing
me.

Since my hypothetical laptop is cache-free and NVRAM-free, I would be
much safer from malware that would otherwise infect my laptop if it
had cache and/or NVRAM.

It would also be nice to have V-RAM chips which one can instantly
erase info without power-offing. Something with signal-multiplier and
phase-inversions. To eliminate the signal, make a copy of it, invert
the phase and then combine the copy with the original. Or, instead of
multipliers /inverters, something that can instantly attenuate the
voltage of the signal down to a perfect zero -- i.e. not a single hint
of electric potential difference -- not even at the quantum level.

 

[CBFalconer]

Can informating stored in volatile RAM still be recovered after the
computer is turned off? I remember reading something on a forensics
website that the evidence is not only on the platters of the HDD but
also on the disk cache chips and the volatile RAM chips in the PC.

Probably not, but I won't say never. About 1975 or so I remember
buying some of the first 16k RAM chips, I believe from Electronic
Associates. They worked, were reasonably priced, but used 24 pin
DIP sockets as I remember. I found, by accident, that they would
retain their contents for something like 24 hours with all power
removed (to ensure that I removed the card from the system).

I even advised EA of this, but they just disappeared. At the time
development of an electrically rewriteable ROM would have been
valuable - the only thing available was UV erasable EPROMS. I
never took advantage of their characteristic, as I had no idea how
reliable it was, and my end use was medical instrumentation.

 

[GreenXenon]

On Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:12:52 -0800 (PST), GreenXenon










Then you are being paranoid beyond reason. Without it being
illegal, it's irrelevant that there is no reasonable way to
recover contents of discharged volatile memory.

Evil corrupt NSA/Central-Security-Service scumbags like to assist
society in abusing social outcasts.

Extra defense against what?

Evil society figuring out my location/identity, dragging me into the
middle of the street and burning me alive. Defense against that.

If you are doing nothing illegal, who would have access to
match up the real mac address to your system?

Corrupt NSA/CSS pieces of crap who gain pleasure from abusing American
citizens.

Not really, you'll be traced through the internet cafe, so
you'll be the really paranoid looking fellow near their
access point.

What if I access their wireless internet connection through my car and
my windows are adequately tinted?

Excellent idea, by doing this you wouldn't be able to
transmit anything and so you have no need to spoof
addresses, no access to these forums so you can't post
mysterious non-illegal content which nobody will care about.

Data can still be transmitted/received but if the RAM chips are
shielded them their electric-signals won't generate radio-signals that
can be picked up by distant objects -- such as a van.

Untrue, malware does not depend on caches or nvram. It
generally resides in volatile memory and if it can, writes
itself to the operating system partition. You could have a
read-only OS partition, in theory at least though certainly
in practice a lot of typical functionality will be lost.

What functionality would be lost if my OS partitions are read-only?

I'd have to wonder though, what's the point of keeping the
power to the system if you've erased the memory so it can't
run anything?

Good point, the goal is to eliminate some V-RAM info but not all of
it. Of course, this isn't all that important, I discussed it simply of
curiosity.

 

[Unruh]

The stuff I write maybe saved forever but...

1. None of what I would like to write is illegal

2. I can post from a wireless internet cafe and add an extra defense
of Mac-Spoofing and IP-spoofing. Right?

Sure, but if you think that hides you you are badly informed.

Each time I log on to the internet, use a different MAC address and
different IP address. MAC addresses can be cloned and emulated in
software as opposed to using the real hardware MAC address branded
into the network card.

If my laptop is NVRAM-free, cache-free and the above apply, then it
will be very difficult to identify/locate me. Right?
No.


Also, a tempest-shield would add benefit in that those NSA/Central-
Security-Service creeps who drive around in vans scanning for leaked
radio-frequency info will have a significantly harder time oppressing
me.

 

[CBFalconer]

Those would be static RAM chips. The data bits were stored in
flip-flops, which means two MOS transistors per bit. Each bit
retained its state until changed, or power was removed. As you
found out, the MOS transistors could retain their charges for
a time after power was removed. Static RAM was expensive,
but very fast and required minimal support cicuitry. I still have
a bunch of TI TMS4044 18 pin 4k static RAM chips.

They definitely were static. However, 24 hours seemed excessive.
I tested them for complete memory over the period.