Booting and operating computing devices at designated locations

A system comprising:

• a memory;
• and
• a processing device operatively coupled to the memory, wherein the processing device is configured to:
• determine, at a startup process of a computing device, whether the computing device is present at a designated target location by:
• checking, using a first near-field communication (NFC) device associated with the computing device, presence of a second NFC device positioned at the target location,
• acquiring, from the second NFC device, an identifier of the second NFC device,
• comparing the received identifier of the second NFC device with an identifier of an authenticated NFC device, wherein the identifier of the authenticated NFC device comprises a stored identifier stored in a memory associated with firmware of the computing device, and
• in response to the received identifier matching the stored identifier, authenticating the second NFC device;
• in response to authenticating the second NFC device, acquire a cryptographic key from the second NFC device;
• decrypt, using the cryptographic key, contents of a storage device of the computing device;
• and
• perform, using the decrypted contents, a boot process for the computing device in response to determining that the computing device is at the target location.

A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium including instructions that, when accessed by a processing device, cause the processing device to:

• determine, at a startup process of a computing device, whether the computing device is present at a designated target location by:
• checking, using a first near-field communication (NFC) device associated with the computing device, presence of a second NFC device positioned at the target location,
• acquiring, from the second NFC device, an identifier of the second NFC device,
• comparing the received identifier of the second NFC device with an identifier of an authenticated NFC device, wherein the identifier of the authenticated NFC device comprises a stored identifier stored in a memory associated with firmware of the computing device, and
• in response to the received identifier matching the stored identifier, authenticating the second NFC device;
• in response to authenticating the second NFC device, acquire a cryptographic key from the second NFC device;
• decrypt, using the cryptographic key, contents of a storage device of the computing device;
• and
• perform, using the decrypted contents, a boot process for the computing device in response to determining that the computing device is at the target location.