I have already asked this question but was mainly focused on a software awnser. The solution for that however is highly unsecure, plugging a usb to dom0 is not something i want to do. Maybe there is some kind of physical thing i can put to verify that it has not been tampered with, like opened. I had a basic idea of invisible tape but it did not workout that well.
You might notice:
from the webpage:
While some of their procedure includes what you said was not acceptable-
Plugging a USB key in as part of booting up.
Some of their list in shipping it to you might be interesting to you.
Customized tamper-evident tape on the sealed plastic bag surrounding the laptop itself
Customized tamper-evident tape on the internal, branded box
Glitter nail polish covering the center (or all) screws on the bottom of the laptop
Pictures of all of the above plus pictures of the inside of the laptop before sealing the bottom case
All pictures sent to the customer out-of-band, signed by Purism and encrypted against the customer’s GPG key
All coordination occurring over GPG-protected email
What is implied. The glitter nail polish is fairly random, which can not be easily duplicated. But how does one -
Take a picture of the screws covered with nail polish, and later a program can compare the first picture to what is on the actual laptop.
Personally Speaking. I am not sure of how random the glitter is. Or know of a program to measure it. Further, If I had a program on my phone that could -accurately -measure the glitter between an original picture and one take right now. How often would I do that. Compare two different pictures.
How much skill, tools would be required for, say a well funded authoritarian government agency to recreate the pattern that was originally there?
There is this funny scene in the movie: “Romancing the Stone” Where the character played by Michael Douglas and the female lead, while running from government troops shooting at them slide down a steep embankment. While at the bottom. The character played by Douglas says to the woman something like:
"If they don;t know you. and are shooting at me. I have not done any thing to piss them off. Bang bang bang bang. Automatic weapons fire.
“Not recently”
I contemplate. How many people are technically competent enough to be able to change something inside my computer to let them -Watch, or Intercept. or Control what I am doing. ??
Who did I piss off that they would go to much $$$ expense to do that?
This is purely theoretical as i dont have the government on my ass. It is not a bad idea but except for the nail polish which may not be that visible if you put it on the screws tape will be seen. I was thinking about something like a secret button that you press before opening the pc or something not so visible both for tamper protection inside the laptop(eg. Soldering a keylogger in the keyboard) and both for opening laptop(eg. Install software in bios to log password etc.)
Maybe what i am asking is just too far out of reach or maybe it is possible what do you think?