Senior Design Projects Bios Clock Card

Forensics investigators typically image a hard drive and analyze this hard drive. Evidence of malfeasance is generated from the files and their MACs (Modified, Accessed, Created), records that register the last operations on the file. Some users will use a BIOS password to prevent unauthorized access to the computer. By removing the battery and reinserting it after a short while, the forensic examiner can gain access to the computer, but the clock will also have been reset, thus preventing access to the system time, without which the MACs have no evidential value.

This project consists in developping a PCI card or some other device that allows the capture of the system time even though the computer is BIOS password protected. A successful project could be patentable and is certainly marketable, even if it does only work for a substantial part of PC motherboards. At this time, I do not know whether the project is possible.