Re: TP750CE Password

[Jonathan Berry <jberry@bbs.sd68.nanaimo.bc.ca>]

> Help!!!  We have an IBM 750ce laptop that we do not know the supervisor
> password. The orginal owner died. IBM tells us that we have to replace
> the motherboard and hard drive. We have already tried to disconnecting
> the internal batteries.

You checked the front page of the deceased's daytimer and slips of
paper in his wallet and in the drawer of his desk?  Safety-deposit
box?

If the supervisor password is supervisor-determined, you might
collect all the personal words of the deceased and hire somebody at
$8 an hour to enter them for a day.  A $64 gamble.  Children's names,
mother's maiden name, pet name, telephone number.  We all saw the
movie War Games.

We all know that you're SUPPOSED to have a nonsensical password like
z%t#qbxt  (interesting that these are all left hand keys...encryption
controlled by the right brain?  Makes sense to me!), but how many of
us really do?

Could you find the password by appropriately reprogramming the EPROM
BIOS?  Isn't it axiomatic that, given enough time and access, any
security measure can be defeated?  Not that I'd know how.

Jonathan Berry