Electricity: electrical systems and devices – Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical... – For electronic systems and devices
Patent
1994-07-19
1996-09-10
Tolin, Gerald P.
Electricity: electrical systems and devices
Housing or mounting assemblies with diverse electrical...
For electronic systems and devices
70 58, 34082531, E05G 1100, E05C 300, G06F 100
Patent
active
055551564
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to protection of computer systems. More particularly, it relates to an apparatus which can be directly associated with a computer system prior to or during installation of the system, to protect the system against possible fraudulent use, damage, and/or tampering, by outside persons or influences.
Computers are currently in wide use, and consequently the information contained in them is increasingly important, as is the need to keep it confidential.
Accordingly, in most cases computer systems need reliable and effective means of protection. Examples of target systems are those operating in the scientific and security areas, and in offices involved in company management, such as accounting, payroll, inventory management, commercial trading, etc.
A great deal of study has been devoted to reliable prevention of: "leakage" of information, fraudulent use of information, and sabotage.
The research on data protection has been directed along two principal lines:
By "physical protection" is meant the use of an apparatus or other means which enable physical isolation of the parts of the system containing the information sought to be protected, or blocking of the physical means of access to such information. This type of apparatus or other means is intended to prevent theft or unauthorized use of information, and also any risk of damage by environmental influences such as heat, dust, fire, and/or water.
Cabinets, disk files, and other containers for diskettes, provided with a key lock or other entry control device, do not provide reliable mechanical resistance to unauthorized entry or use. Moreover, often they are stored in office rooms along with other documents without particular selectivity and without protection over and above that afforded to ordinary items. As a result, they can be easily removed by a thief, along with their contents, particularly since they generally are of small dimensions. Of course, the theft of the data storage media and containers themselves is generally not of high economic impact. Instead, the more serious impact results from the loss of information.
Operators regard these "protective" measures as onerous, and in practice the measures tend to be implemented only in the case of a prolonged absence of the operator.
It is also known to employ removable hard disks to store basic data. Their drawbacks are that they are costly and of generally low speed, and further that they only offer protection if stored in a reinforced cabinet at the end of each work session. The technique requires cumbersome manipulations, and necessitates interruption of work in progress. Consequently it tends to be employed only in the case of a prolonged absence, similarly to the abovementioned measures.
Other means of protection have been considered for specific applications, such as key means to lock the keyboard, anti-theft markings, brackets to fix equipment to the support on which it is held, etc. These types of protection are effective only under limited circumstances.
In this connection one might mention boxes and cabinets which are shielded and/or are provided with fire resistance means. These are generally used for storing disks, diskettes, cassettes, and magnetic tapes.
It would be impractical to also store the essential equipment (e.g. central processing unit (CPU), monitor, keyboard, etc.) in such enclosures.
Existing CPUs generally comprise a housing fixed to a chassis by screws, and have one or more front ports for diskette readers or cassette players. The connection between the keyboard and the CPU is established by a relatively simple key lock. Unfortunately, even if the key is used conscientiously to isolate the keyboard, the housing can be opened via the screws, and access thereby can be obtained to the interior components, particularly the switches. In this way, switches can be shorted to avoid the protective means; and no special equipment is needed for this. Furthermore, the described protection means are merely physical and only relate to the con
REFERENCES:
patent: 4818986 (1989-04-01), Bauman
patent: 4972182 (1990-11-01), Novik et al.
patent: 5299862 (1994-04-01), Rankine
patent: 5389919 (1995-02-01), Warren et al.
Tolin Gerald P.
Vu Phuong T.
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