Hard drive hack provides root access, even after reinstall
This is some hard core hacking! Love it! First, as others mentioned, this is why you should always encrypt your os drives. Second, it also got me thinking, how many other devices are open to this kind of attack. Like a network switch, perhaps? Say you buy 100 network switches, alter the firmware to call home and maybe even load a Linux instance, and then resell them on amazon, eBay, or even better, give a "good" cash deal to some local IT company. Then you just seat back and wait for your 100 bots to call home for their new business class Internet homes.