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

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

#51

Post by perfopt »

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…

As I was reading this I was hoping for modern day Cuckoo's Egg. But it was not to be.

Great write up. Thanks for sharing.

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

#52

Post by growt »

tinus_hn wrote: post #28
wink wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also had this problem once, on a university campus though. "net send 'If you can read this, please call IT SUPPORT at ... and tell us'". It worked :)

This should really only ever happen with wireless connections. You should always be able to tell what switchport a computer is connected to and work from there.

And then? The cable disappears into a wall together with 100s of other cables (which most likely are not labeled or not correctly, otherwise you wouldn't have lost the machine in the first place)

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

#53

Post by suifbwish »

tinus_hn wrote: post #28
wink wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also had this problem once, on a university campus though. "net send 'If you can read this, please call IT SUPPORT at ... and tell us'". It worked :)

This should really only ever happen with wireless connections. You should always be able to tell what switchport a computer is connected to and work from there.

One of the many reasons that I dislike the push towards wifi/wireless for everything. It makes my hair stand on end to see people using wireless keyboards (which people usually have for at least 5 years). People seem so disgusted when you even suggest that these things are inherently bad ideas which will inevitably lead to consequences and immediately push you into a naysayer/antiprogressive category verbally or silently.

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

#54

Post by Hamuko »

eertami wrote: post #46

>And what do we do, when we want to find out a location associated with a wifi name? We go to wigle.net, enter the SSID (=wifi name) and it tells us where on the world it is found. I've always enjoyed having unique/personal SSIDs, but had never seriously considered this consequence. I wonder what the worlds generic SSIDs are.

"Home" returns quite a lot of results in my area on Wigle.net despite the fact that English isn't an official language here. You can probably pick and choose any generic Wi-Fi router manufacturer name. "Linksys" paints the map pretty well.

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

#55

Post by smcl »

Chris2048 wrote: post #43
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…

> told him to pack his things and get out I though the suspects were an ex-employee, and some guy that didn't work there (the part-owner), so was an actual current employee implicated in the end?

An ex-employee who still had a key to the office so they could move some stuff they had there. Presumably that courtesy was immediately terminated and the key was returned.

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

#56

Post by suifbwish »

growt wrote: post #52
tinus_hn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should really only ever happen with wireless connections. You should always be able to tell what switchport a computer is connected to and work from there.

And then? The cable disappears into a wall together with 100s of other cables (which most likely are not labeled or not correctly, otherwise you wouldn't have lost the machine in the first place)

It is completely irresponsible and without excuse for any main network operator/owner to not be completely aware of what each and every cable does which is connected to a switch/network router. If the owner refuses to determine this, they are responsible if there is a nefarious device on the network until they do. Wireless makes this much more complicated so any responsible admin will ensure the wireless network is completely isolated from the physical network and is privileged to only access the internet or separate devices.

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

#57

Post by suifbwish »

sneak wrote: post #50
suifbwish wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An encrypted disk would be kind of useless in such a device as it would require the user to login every time the device reboots, unless they intend for it to never be rebooted. I’m not sure what you mean by network key in this case.

No, you can have the initrd boot to a dropbear sshd that allows the operator to ssh in on reboots and provide the key.

Wouldn’t that part of the disk then need to be unencrypted?

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

#58

Post by bopbeepboop »

mschuster91 wrote: post #17

I do wonder when the first "smart SFP" with embedded wi-fi appears - an unlabeled RPi in a junction box raises alarms, but a SFP module that's just a bit longer than the rest? Many would rather assume on first glance that accounting bought some cheaper crap due to delivery chain issues. (For those OOTL, see https://blog.benjojo.co.uk/post/smart-sfp-linux-inside - it made the rounds on Twitter and HN a couple days ago…

No post body was provided.

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

#59

Post by suifbwish »

azalemeth wrote: post #27

That's a very obvious and very obviously bad way of planting a network exploit. Very rookie and rather sad. In entirely unrelated news, this guide details how to set up an encrypted boot process on a raspberry pi, with it waiting for you(r forked login agent) to ssh in and provide the LUKS password: https://github.com/ViRb3/pi-encrypted-boot-ssh

Without reverse ssh wouldn’t you need to be directly on the same network to do so?

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

#60

Post by xattt »

qngcdvy wrote: post #5
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…

Did you ever find out what it did there exactly? Like, what it collected and what the "gifted person" wanted to do with that data? edit: Thanks for the write-up btw. Was a nice read, although a bit short (which is the story's fault I guess)

Is “gifted person” code for something? Are they from some sort of enrichment program?
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