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BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

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Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#191

Post by geoduck14 »

stickfigure wrote: post #68
amoshi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I think so too, it wouldn't have protected him. Whoever was in charge of the operation would've noticed and identified this killswitch, and prepared appropriately. The suspect would be incapacitated as a matter of priority to prevent him from activating it.

Honestly, that sounds a little too "CSI". If the lanyard is attached to a wrist, the chance that someone could be suddenly incapacitated in such a way to avoid a jerky movement that breaks the connection is pretty small. "Knock them unconscious" is a TV trope.

What about "pin his hands to the table" while the nerds exfiltrate the data?

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#192

Post by gambiting »

kortilla wrote: post #103
gambiting wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truecrypt had this exact function - one password would decrypt your drive sort of on one end, and start the OS there, another password would decrypt the drive on the other end, and start the OS installed there - so you always had perfectly plausible deniability, since the drive taken as a whole looked like a completely normal encrypted drive(in fact you could accidentally destroy the hidden partition by overwriting "…

The only problem is this is sort of obvious from a forensics perspective. Person is using truecrypt, they boot it up for you, and the partition is only half the size it should be.

No, like the other reply pointed out too - it's not obvious. The first password unlocks the entire partition, the hidden one is just within the "empty" area of the drive. If you write a sufficiently large file while running the OS you could just overwrite and destroy the hidden partition without knowing that you did so. It's also impossible to tell that the hidden parition is there because encrypted data is indistinguishable from encrypted empty area of the drive.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#193

Post by maltfield »

comeonseriously wrote: post #84

Windows: Sorry, Dave, we can't shut your system down right now, you have 3 apps keeping it from shutting down and we have 37 updates to Edge Browser to install... Have a nice day.

Currently the BusKill app just locks the screen when the cable disconnects. I've never had Windows block the screen lock with such an error.

The way we implemented the self-destruct (currently only available in Linux), it locks the screen before attempting to wipe the LUKS Header. I imagine we'll do something similar in Windows, so the worst-case would be the soft shutdown hangs but at-least the screen is locked immediately.

Hopefully we can force an immediate, uninterruptible, hard-shutdown in Windows, too.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#194

Post by maltfield »

scblock wrote: post #190

I hate everything about this website. It uses all the tropes of a bad kickstarter campaign, and to sell you this item it preys on fear and misunderstanding. I absolutely do not trust that this company has my best interest at heart. It's so bad I wouldn't go near this product for any money.

Hi. I made the website. What exactly don't you trust? Everything is open-source, including the designs to build a BusKill cable yourself.

* https://docs.buskill.in/buskill-app/en/stable/hardware_dev/i...

The website also runs fine over Tor with javascript disabled. And I spent a lot of time modifying the theme to remove as much third party content (eg google fonts) as I could.

We don't expect blind trust, but we do try to be totally transparent to earn it.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#195

Post by Jerrrry »

DarylZero wrote: post #185
Jerrrry wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will hit the outlet and bring the AC with them, without bumping voltage.

What kind of equipment does one use to do this?

I'm sure a power-supply-person with more knowledge can expand, but essentially a USP brick with cabling.

They will bridge the outlet, and take the outlet, AC adapter, and everything connected, without the AC adapter even reading a voltage drop.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#196

Post by chipsa »

DarylZero wrote: post #185
Jerrrry wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will hit the outlet and bring the AC with them, without bumping voltage.

What kind of equipment does one use to do this?

It's a specialized tool, but basically the plug get pulled out slightly (which isn't enough to disconnect power in the US), and then the tool goes over the line and neutral pins, which supplies power from what is basically an UPS. After that, the entire plug can be pulled and capped (because you've got 120V across the exposed end of a plug now).

Probably wouldn't work the same in Euro countries which have other plug types.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#197

Post by maltfield »

shultays wrote: post #56

BusKill can trigger your laptop to lock, shutdown, or self-destruct if it's physically separated from you. I understand lock and shutdown but self-destruct? Really? Your laptop/data is one bump away from destroying itself?

Hi, Michael Altfield here (founder of the BusKill project).

As described on the crowdsupply page, the cross-platform GUI app (as opposed to the udev rule for which BusKill was originally designed) currently only has the "lock screen" trigger. In the future, we'll add a "shutdown" trigger.

While we have developed a "LUKS Header Shredder" trigger (what we call "self-destruct" trigger -- as it renders your FDE disk's data permanently inaccessible), we will never ship that directly with the app by default.

There's definitely a use-case for it, but most people probably don't want it. For those that do, we're publishing a guide on how to use the "LUKS Header Shredder" script (tested on Ubuntu and QubesOS) in 2 weeks. For updates, you can subscribe to the website's RSS feed, our website's newsletter (buskill.in), or the crowdsupply.com newsletter.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#199

Post by remram »

pmorici wrote: post #151
zionic wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it make sense to remove the battery on your laptop entirely? With a modified magsafe-like power cord any attempt to grab the machine hard-kills the system and RAM begins degrading immediately. Epoxy over the screw terminals would also delay an attacker long enough to prevent freezing the RAM with compressed air to try and dump RAM via an exploit kit.

Devices to transfer from wall power to battery backup for transport have existed for a long time. https://wiebetech.com/products/hotplug-field-kit/

TIL. Found a demo on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erq4TO_a3z8&t=3m39s

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#200

Post by maltfield »

MarkusWandel wrote: post #67
shultays wrote: post #56

BusKill can trigger your laptop to lock, shutdown, or self-destruct if it's physically separated from you. I understand lock and shutdown but self-destruct? Really? Your laptop/data is one bump away from destroying itself?

There are any number of ways to do this, but one is a LUKS encrypted file system and "self destruct" is wiping out the LUKS header and halting. Only the backup of the LUKS header (not with you at the time!) will restore the data.

This is exactly what we do with the "LUKS Header Shredder" script in BusKill. First we lock the screen. Then we use the built-in `luksErase` command to destroy the data in the key slots, then we overwrite the whole header area. Then hard-shutdown.

This script itself was actually an easter-egg in the explainer video at 50 seconds :P

* https://youtu.be/S3LtLyuaBvI?t=46

We're just finishing a very detailed write-up on the "LUKS Header Shredder," and we'll be publishing it in ~2 weeks. You can subscribe to our newsletter on our website (buskill.in) or crowdsupply.com for updates :)

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