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BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

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Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#261

Post by arpa »

Linosaurus wrote: post #234
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 "…

> perfectly plausible deniability The paranoid dystopian counterpart is that you cannot prove you don't have a second partition either. Might get awkward if someone decided to compel the second password on less solid evidence. If you're not actually using the feature.

this is why you should actually have "signs of life" and something _slightly_ illegal on your plausible deniability partition. Just enough dirt to get you into trouble, but not too much trouble. If you're squeeky clean, you get the rubber hose cryptography treatment.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#262

Post by Ensorceled »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #260
Ensorceled wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kill switch is useless if the accused is incapacitated before they could trigger it. No knock raids, which are inherently violent, to "preserve evidence" and reduce the risk to LEO happen about 20000 times a year in the US.

> No knock raids, which are inherently violent > reduce the risk to LEO I remember reading news about an american who killed an officer who entered without knocking. He was not convicted, it was ruled self-defense.

20,000 no knock raids and, I think, two cases of officers being killed.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#263

Post by matheusmoreira »

kingcharles wrote: post #257
matheusmoreira wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someome is pointing a gun at you, it's probably too late to do anything. There should probably be cameras and motion detectors monitoring the perimeter in order to provide early warning.

The second part is harder to defend against. I didn't flinch when LEO pointed a loaded gun at me and threatened to shoot me, but as soon as they threatened my wife I told them I would sign whatever fiction they wanted to write, which I did. It just took me close to 8 years of being in jail to get a judge to look at it and tell them off and throw out the document.

... Police threatened your wife in order to make you sign a confession? That's extremely fucked up.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#264

Post by jsjohnst »

tata71 wrote: post #172
gfosco wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm getting closer and closer to this reality... iphones are basically there, with icloud backup. Have been trying to get less attached to any OS installs, and be fast at building up from a fresh install. Seems hard to even trust your own desktop after a while.

Is this convenience worth sending unencrypted backups of your data to Apple? Do they allow truly offline backup and restore?

> Is this convenience worth sending unencrypted backups of your data to Apple?

iCloud Backups are not "unencrypted backups"

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

I do wish they would bump the backups to "end-to-end encryption" category though, at least as an option.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#265

Post by liminalsunset »

MacBooks used to have a key combination (left cmd shift option and power) that could be used to kill power instantly. In the schematics, these keyboard keys were hard wired to the SMC microcontroller's reset line, which would remove all voltage to the motherboard upon reset.

With the T2, this still exists, but you need to wait more seconds and use a 2step combination. This is a pain because you can no longer use it to do an emergency shutdown.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#266

Post by goodpoint »

sildur wrote: post #164
tjader wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will you prevent a USB device to present itself as both a keyboard and mass storage and then type commands that copy data?

With QubesOS. I just tried adding a keyboard and it simply showed me a pop up saying a USB keyboard has been attached. It won’t work until I attach it to a qube.

usbguard does that without the need for Qubes.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#268

Post by goodpoint »

yholio wrote: post #77

Good to have if you run a dark net marketplace or a political disident ring from public libraries. An additional refinement is to autolock the device if a certain personal key combo (ex. Shit - vol up - vol down) is not pressed every few minutes in response to an audible click. If not unlocked in a minute or so with a complex password, the device halts to a disk encrypted state and unpowered ram, minimizing the windo…

> Good to have if you run a dark net marketplace or a political disident ring from public libraries.

...and expose the contents of the screen to any camera with a good zoom? And the passwords you type? Not good.

It's just an very overpriced thing that can protect you from a thief and not the FBI.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#270

Post by orthecreedence »

multjoy wrote: post #253
dane-pgp wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also why Assange (and others) developed the Rubberhose file system[0]. It's based on the game theoretic idea that if your adversary has no way of knowing how many hidden partitions you have, then you have no way of proving to them that you've given them all your secrets. As such, there is no benefit to you revealing any secrets under torture, because the torture would continue even after you've told them every…

A state liable to torture you may simply kill you instead. Or torture you and kill you, even if it serves no particular purpose. If you're in the business of protecting your secrets against torture then you need to also be protecting them against death because that is grimly inevitable.

"I don't think they wanted me to say anything. It was just their way of having a bit of fun, the swines."
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