reminds me of a tragic death the other day where someone in a Starbucks was killed getting flung off a car while he was trying to save his laptop from robbers who grabbed his computer.
BusKill: A kill cord for your laptop
261–270 of 272 posts
Re: BusKill: A kill cord for your laptop
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, that guide uses PAM and OTP. This [1] is the guide. It uses OpenSC and the smartcard feature of the YubiKey (not all support this but my YubiKey Neo (3rd gen) and YubiKey Nano 4 both do). Neither of them supports FIDO2 though; other than that they are feature rich. [1] https://support.yubico.com/support/solutions/articles/150000...
Thanks so much for your reply, Fnoord. Does that approach allow instantly locking the screen if the YubiKey is removed? It's not mentioned in the guide, so I just want to be sure.
Yes, it does, though I had to set it to lock immediately in System Preferences (triggers immediately the screensaver; first guide you linked explains how to do this). I'm using the Word Of The Day screensaver, so it is really inspiring to get back from grabbing a cup of coffee.
Also, remember you only need to enter the PIN, which I'd argue is a good thing as I don't want to enter my password in public (I don't even know my password out of my head). If you boot up, you need a password of a username to unlock FileVault, but I use a different username for that (who does not have root, though for forensics this is an attack vector).
Re: BusKill: A kill cord for your laptop
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try to get the screen or battery replaced. To be fair, they're easier user serviceable than newer MB(A/P)s. For example, me with my MBP 2015 will have a harder time to service it once it gets EOL (hardware-wise) than you have now with your MBA 2012.
I've replaced the battery twice, last time in september 2019, and this last time it costed me 60 EUR, and the battery life is much better than the original one. I might want to replace the battery again in the next 3-4 years if I still have this laptop, and you might be right in that this might not be possible, but at least today it is.
Oh it is likely possible via iFixit or other aftermarket. Just not officially via Apple.
Re: BusKill: A kill cord for your laptop
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you can't prevent the device from powering down, you have less than a minute to freeze the RAM before the contents become useless. This can be done with a can of cold spray. No idea how long you have to power it back on afterwards, tens of minutes to a couple of hours probably. That said, the proper "kill switch" operation would be to explicitly wipe the key from memory before powering off (if you want to power of…
> you have less than a minute to freeze the RAM before the contents become useless. This can be done with a can of cold spray. I wonder what their approach to a laptop with poor serviceability would be. I think it would take me more than a minute to get physical access to the ram of some modern computers.
That’s because you’re concerned with the laptop still being usable afterwards. :)
Re: BusKill: A kill cord for your laptop
#265reminds me of a tragic death the other day where someone in a Starbucks was killed getting flung off a car while he was trying to save his laptop from robbers who grabbed his computer.
Re: BusKill: A kill cord for your laptop
#266The article keeps saying "self-destruct" but that's not what happens. But if your hard drive is encrypted, this is a pretty good solution for most people. Maybe if you can get BusKill to activate a mini thermite explosive under your hard drive.
Making it self-destruct is the easy part, just change "DISPLAY=:0 xscreensaver-command -lock" to "sudo rm -rf /" or whatever you like. It's understandable that the author didn't want to put a destructive command in his example configuration.
Assuming you were actually going to use something like this, you're likely using full disk encryption.
At that point, the better option would be (IMO) to simply blow away the first 2 MB or so of your disk (where the LUKS master key is stored), run a "sync", and execute an immediate "reboot -f" (along with, perhaps, the other options that skip spitting out the warning message, writing an entry to utmp/wtmp or whatever, and so on).
There wouldn't be a real need to actually zero/wipe the entire drive (which would take a bit, even at SSD speeds).
Re: BusKill: A kill cord for your laptop
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
It can do whatever you want it to do. The examples in the article were: • whenever any USB drive is removed, trigger xscreensaver to lock the screen: > ACTION=="remove", SUBSYSTEM=="usb", RUN+="DISPLAY=:0 xscreensaver-command -lock" • whenever a specific USB drive is removed, shut down the computer: > ACTION=="remove", SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ENV{ID_MODEL}=="Micromax_A74", RUN+="shutdown -h now"
Nitpick, it can do whatever you want it to do that’s possible in software. You’ll be disappointed if you want to have it drill a hole in your hard drive ;)
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Re: BusKill: A kill cord for your laptop
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks so much for your reply, Fnoord. Does that approach allow instantly locking the screen if the YubiKey is removed? It's not mentioned in the guide, so I just want to be sure.
Yes, it does, though I had to set it to lock immediately in System Preferences (triggers immediately the screensaver; first guide you linked explains how to do this). I'm using the Word Of The Day screensaver, so it is really inspiring to get back from grabbing a cup of coffee. Also, remember you only need to enter the PIN, which I'd argue is a good thing as I don't want to enter my password in public (I don't even k…
And enable "Turn on screensaver when login token is removed" at System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> General -> Advanced
Re: BusKill: A kill cord for your laptop
#269Wow, a solution for a problem we never have to worry about in Asia. Why can't your government just crack down on theft so that people can be allowed to use their laptop wherever they want without fear?
Re: BusKill: A kill cord for your laptop
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've replaced the battery twice, last time in september 2019, and this last time it costed me 60 EUR, and the battery life is much better than the original one. I might want to replace the battery again in the next 3-4 years if I still have this laptop, and you might be right in that this might not be possible, but at least today it is.
Oh it is likely possible via iFixit or other aftermarket. Just not officially via Apple.
Yep, I just googled my model + battery, and ordered a new battery from iFixit. Took like 15 min to swap the battery myself.