Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
no because it's completely useless all by itself
allright, I get you. A car is a car even if you can't drive it.
no because it's completely useless all by itself.
edit: if it had a GPU and mouse/KB/lan/usb/audio ports I'd reconsider.
You, the software, and the OS control the drive, your control is limited. It has all the components of an computer. Look at the Rpi. Why is that a computer? Because it can run a major OS like Linux? The computer and OS are two different things. BTW you can interact with the OS on the drive, but like I said, it's limited.
BTW you can interact with the OS on the drive, but like I said, it's limited.
HDD = too specific
Computer needs to be more general purpose in its calculation capabilities to achieve a broader range of requirements.
At the end of the day, a HDD can only function as a HDD. A computer can fit into several roles with the only change being the OS/ software that runs on it.
Please look ar computer definitions. .
Apparently the WD color drives are the same drive, but with a different OS that gives it different abilities. If WD gave us the ability to choose which firmware we wanted to put on it, or we could put open source firmware on it, would that make it a computer?
A lot of people view routers as highly specialized computers. If that's a computer, why isn't a hard drive? How many commands does the OS have to support before the hardware is considered a computer?
a. digital computer analog computer See also hybrid computer a device, usually electronic, that processes data according to a set of instructions. The digital computer stores data in discrete units and performs arithmetical and logical operations at very high speed.
Stores data. Check.
Processes data. Check. It has error detection and correction algorithms, and probably more.
No it would not. Firmware does not equal an OS. A HDD can only do one thing... act like a HDD. The CPU built into the hardware cannot do any other calculations. The arithmetic functions must be built into the CPU, and the capabilities of low level hardware will never and are not supposed to match those of a main CPU.
You can turn any computer into a router (routing is a set of software based rules), can you turn any computer into a HDD? Its not the OS that has to support anything, its the hardware that has to support the commands. The hardware in a HDD is only designed for one specific function, and the firmware (as with any firmware) is only designed to interact with that hardware for support of that function.
Can I take a HDD and load up any code to do anything other than function as a HDD and have it work? The answer is no, not without changing the hardware... which brings me back to my original point, its too specific and by nature is not a computer. Computers must be general purpose.
Can I take any consumer grade router and change its role via software? Yes... routers run unix based OS's over top of their firmware. Mind you, the hardware is not powerful by any means, but you still could change the role of the router away from routing.
With the firmware hack in place, however, the attacker could tell the hard disk to do something nefarious with the new install. He'd need to trigger that behaviour first, though, and that could be done by writing a certain magic string the firmware hack would look for to the disk. The magic string can be in any file; the attacker could for example upload a .jpeg-file with the string in it to the server. He could also request a file from the webserver with the magic string appended to the URL. That would eventually end up in the logs of the machines, triggering the exploit.
The hard disk firmware hack would then do something nefarious. For example, it could wait for the machine to read out the file /etc/shadow, where all the passwords are stored on an Unix/Linux system, and modify the contents on-the-fly to something the attacker hardcoded earlier. When the attacker would then try to log into the system with his own password, the machine would check this password against the now-modified /etc/shadow and the attacker would be free to login again.
http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack&page=6
My thermostat is a computer. It can only control one thing - the heat pump.
HDs are computers.
Here's a guy who hacked the firmware of a hard drive to get it to do something else, similar to how people hacked the consumer grade routers you mentioned.
Attacker breaks into computer, updates the firmware and if the admin wipes the drive and reinstalls the OS, the attacker can still get back in. If that can be done, can't other capabilities be added?
I dont think HDDs even have a CPU. I think they have a series of chips that serve different functions/ logic.
the defining feature of a computer to me is 'a human can interact with it directly'.
by that definition a thermostat is a computer while an ordinary HD is not. same with a graphics card. but home routers, would be considered a computer, TV, DVD player, PS3, all computers.
anyone here know anything about Tron OS? (no, not the movie)
I am incorrect- HDDs do in fact have a multipurpose CPU (and a pretty decent one with a 3-core ARMv5 architecture) according to this article http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack&page=3
So with that said, I change my stance. A HDD is a computer (at least the new ones with these multipurpose CPUs). These can handle different instruction sets and (at least in theory) do other tasks than typical HDD
I guess settles it, thanks.
Reading the rest of the article, the guy even installs a version of linux with the buffer acting as the HDD. Which is kinda comical.
Essentially, you could take the PCB off a HDD and still have a working computer.
Not unless you have a specialized firmware for the HDD PCB since a HDD PCB generally will not even detect in BIOS if there is no actual HDD attached to it unless things have changed recently.
Finally Turing gets a mention. When you buy an HDD, it's clearly not a computer, because it's not Turing complete (and really by itself you can't even turn it on !).
Now, if you add a PSU, a way to interact with it (without a motherboard, CPU etc., else it doesn't make sense), and replace its firmware, then yes, it has all the hardware needed to be a computer. But as is, I would say no.
Computers need not be Turing complete.
From wiki: "A computer is a general purpose device that can be programmed to carry out a set of arithmetic or logical operations."
Not much is required for a computer.
Computers need not be Turing complete.
From wiki: "A computer is a general purpose device that can be programmed to carry out a set of arithmetic or logical operations."
Not much is required for a computer.
I would argue that a hard drive is not general purpose but a device that serves a specific function.
And you'd be right. But I think what seals if for me, is that using the same hardware, you could use a HDD for general purpose with slight modification to its OS.
Specifically not.
It doesnt have the i/o for general purpose use.
I would argue that a hard drive is not general purpose but a device that serves a specific function.