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The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

blog.haschek.at

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Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#31

Post by Sebb767 »

michaelt wrote: post #20
jokoon wrote: post #13

I'm rather curious, why can't the RPi have soldered flash memory? How much would it cost to add 2, 4, or 8GB of flash memory on it? Because I would gladly pay for a Rpi with such memory if it added 10 dollars. I'm suspecting it would require for them to make a new SOC, breaking compability?

Using an SD card means you can reset the Pi to factory settings by swapping the card for another; and undo the reset by swapping the cards back. This is substantially simpler for beginners than using network boot, or messing around with a bootloader via serial console.

Additionally, as split root storage setup because the boot partition is small is a lot more complicated than simply buying a 64GB+ sd card and (usually) have no storage problems.

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#32

Post by soldeace »

mypastself wrote: post #14

Gripping! Would love to read more articles in this “genre”. I’m wondering if there was an easy way for the attacker to encrypt or obfuscate some of these configuration files, so that defenders can’t extract settings even when physically connected to the device.

The investigative work in that piece reminds me of this old case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAI8S2houW4

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#33

Post by TaylorAlexander »

jokoon wrote: post #13

I'm rather curious, why can't the RPi have soldered flash memory? How much would it cost to add 2, 4, or 8GB of flash memory on it? Because I would gladly pay for a Rpi with such memory if it added 10 dollars. I'm suspecting it would require for them to make a new SOC, breaking compability?

You can have this today. Raspberry Pi sells the wonderful Compute Module 4 with the normal Pi CPU on it, and it optionally comes with built in EMMC memory. You can plop it on a carrier that gives it a normal raspberry pi form factor. I use the CM4 in my projects and it’s lovely.

Sorry these are two different distributors, but the CM4 is hard to find right now and the PiTray mini is cool, just couldn’t find them at the same place. PiTray mini is also at Digi-Key I think.

https://www.seeedstudio.com/Raspberry-Pi-Compute-Module-CM41...

https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2196.html

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#34

Post by barrkel »

magicalhippo wrote: post #23

Reminds me of this[1] good old quote from the IRC days hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is. [1]: http://bash.org/?5273

This is surely pretty commonplace now, with all the wireless devices we have.

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#35

Post by fnord123 »

gwd wrote: post #21
geek_at wrote: post #3

Author of the article here. Since I first published this blog post I was getting messages from people asking how it ended. Sadly it's pretty anticlimactic as the owner of the place had a meeting with the guy who put the Pi there (without me as he didn't want the Pi-dropper to feel ambushed) and in the end decided not to escalate it to legal and just basically told him to pack his things and get out. So no legal after…

> So no legal after play and just a slap on the wrist The problem with this is you have no idea what harm the guy actually may have caused; nor what other RPis he may have set up around the company or around town. Next time he may be more careful with his username, set up the disk to be encrypted w/ a network key, &c, making future exploits more difficult to track down.

There is a case to be made for using the legal system as a deterrent. But there is also the case to made to not do that as in the case of Aaron Swartz.

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#36

Post by GravitasFailure »

magicalhippo wrote: post #23

Reminds me of this[1] good old quote from the IRC days hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is. [1]: http://bash.org/?5273

When I first read that back in the day I thought how absurd and improbable it sounded because of how big computers were at the time. Now that raspberry pis and arduinos with wifi are a thing it seems almost inevitable.

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#37

Post by fmajid »

mypastself wrote: post #14

Gripping! Would love to read more articles in this “genre”. I’m wondering if there was an easy way for the attacker to encrypt or obfuscate some of these configuration files, so that defenders can’t extract settings even when physically connected to the device.

Read The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll. An oldie but a goldie.

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#38

Post by drewzero1 »

gambiting wrote: post #16
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

now i guess a smaller pi zero can do this with a much smaller footprint

Pi Zero doesn't have an ethernet port, so you have the size of the pi+ethernet adapter then.

I've been playing around with orangepi zero for when I just need ethernet, wifi, and USB. It fits in an Altoids tin with room for some cable management.

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#39

Post by mypastself »

fmajid wrote: post #37
mypastself wrote: post #14

Gripping! Would love to read more articles in this “genre”. I’m wondering if there was an easy way for the attacker to encrypt or obfuscate some of these configuration files, so that defenders can’t extract settings even when physically connected to the device.

Read The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll. An oldie but a goldie.

I’ve owned a copy for a while now. This might just be the push I needed to pick it up.

Re: The curious case of the Raspberry Pi in the network closet (2019)

#40

Post by xvector »

GravitasFailure wrote: post #36
magicalhippo wrote: post #23

Reminds me of this[1] good old quote from the IRC days hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is. [1]: http://bash.org/?5273

When I first read that back in the day I thought how absurd and improbable it sounded because of how big computers were at the time. Now that raspberry pis and arduinos with wifi are a thing it seems almost inevitable.

I was looking at my network today and I realized I didn't know what one of the devices on my network was. I knew its IP, but it had no hostname and a randomized MAC. And for the life of me I couldn't remember what it was, even though I knew which room it was in! (by the AP/signal strength)

I had to use my firewall to monitor the network traffic of the IP to determine what the device was. It turned out to be a long-forgotten smartwatch collecting dust on a charger tucked away somewhere.

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