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<DIV>I developed a voting system (see <A
href="http://www.SAVIOC.com">www.SAVIOC.com</A>) that uses ordinary old PCs,
yet is more transparent and trustworthy than anything else in use
today. All software, including the operating system (FreeDOS) boots from a
floppy that can be verified by hash code. The PC never uses the hard
drive, and doesn't even need one. Trustworthiness comes from people
with different interests being able to prevent each other from doing anything
fraudulent. I think the only significant potential vulnerability is that
someone with physical access to the machines could install a malicious
BIOS. Learning about the OpenBIOS project gave me hope of overcoming that
vulnerability.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>(1) Is my hope justified? Can a PC be booted from a floppy that
completely replaces the native BIOS in RAM, and then loads FreeDOS? (Can
the possibility of a malicious BIOS be made a non-issue?)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>If all answers are YES, then the remaining very basic questions become
important.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>(2) Roughly how much space on the floppy would be required?</DIV>
<DIV>(3) What downloads would I need? OpenBIOS AND OpenFirmware AND
OpenBOOT? Anything else?</DIV>
<DIV>(4) How are they downloaded? </DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://www.openfirmware.info/index.php/Downloads">http://www.openfirmware.info/index.php/Downloads</A> displays
a page beginning, "This page has been deleted." All other links that imply
the possibility of downloading reach a page headlined, "<SPAN id=errorText>The
page cannot be displayed".</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN>Chuck Gaston</SPAN></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>