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BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

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Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#271

Post by goodpoint »

The-Bus wrote: post #162
WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #141

Say I'm an investigative journalist, gathering information about some bad guy embezzling all politicians that matter in a small country and doing all kinds of criminal stuff, including murders. I'm careful. I'm using a laptop that has this kill switch. I only keep my work on this laptop, it's so sensitive. The bad guy gets a whiff I'm digging around him. He sends armed thugs to my lair. They enter, so I pop the kill…

XKCD #538 ("Security") explains this succinctly. https://xkcd.com/538/

XKCD makes the same mistake as the parent of confusing a legal threat with a threat of bodily harm.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#272

Post by kingcharles »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #263
kingcharles wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes. Stupid retards did it on video though, otherwise it wouldn't have been seen at all. This was after over an hour of threatening me and refusing my right to silence, not letting me speak to my lawyer, etc.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#273

Post by arpa »

gruez wrote: post #113
salex89 wrote: post #51

Or, maybe just add back the Kensington Security Slot and attach the laptop to yourself/desk with a strong wire and not have your laptop yanked in the first place. I understand the first part of my idea is dead in the water, we hardly get additional ports, let alone a slot hardly anyone will use. But I would like to see a way to retrofit a KSS on a laptop.

>Or, maybe just add back the Kensington Security Slot and attach the laptop to yourself/desk with a strong wire and not have your laptop yanked in the first place. They could still yank you . It would pretty hard for you to execute the self destruct sequence after the undercover fbi agent knocked you over from your chair.

It all boils down to whether your adversary is mossad or not mossad [1].

1. https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#274

Post by dane-pgp »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #228
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…

"JOB OPPORTUNITY: Assassins and mercenaries required. Must be proficient in game theory". In reality they will torture you until you stop decrypting partitions, and then a bit more of special torture, just in case.

If they don't understand game theory, that just means they will act sub-optimally. In any case, the correct strategy for the user is still to not decrypt any partitions, since, as you say, the sooner the user stops decrypting, the sooner the torturers give up.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#275

Post by at_a_remove »

kingcharles wrote: post #272
matheusmoreira wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes. Stupid retards did it on video though, otherwise it wouldn't have been seen at all. This was after over an hour of threatening me and refusing my right to silence, not letting me speak to my lawyer, etc.

I would like to know more, if you're able.

Eight years of false imprisonment sounds like lawsuit city, to me.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#276

Post by chrischen »

Must have if you work in public places in SF. I can barely count how many times I’ve personally or had a friend who’s either had their laptop stolen in a coffee shop or attempted. In recent years thieves even got more brazen and just try to snatch it from you while your hands are still on the keyboard which is perfect for this device. You’ll want to enable full disk encryption for full security.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#277

Post by kayodelycaon »

dane-pgp wrote: post #231
XorNot wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of a coworker who had their iPhone set to "wipe after 10 bad pins". Took about 2 days before their 5 year old happily typed the wrong pin 10 times and wiped it.

There should be an exponentially increasing delay for such a system, so that the phone would make you wait hours (or days) before letting you make your 10th guess. That would require the 5 year old to not get bored of the useless phone, and the owner to not find the phone (and enter the correct code) for those days too. Also, it would make sense to include a simple proof-of-intentionality system, like the old Nokia k…

There is an increasing delay on iPhones. After 6 attempt it stops accepting input for 5 minutes. It gets longer each time after that.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#278

Post by generalizations »

goodpoint wrote: post #268
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.

He's making a reference to dread pirate Roberts. This was the threat model.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#279

Post by Jerrrry »

vkou wrote: post #250
MayeulC wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once wrote a script to automatically lock my computer if I got too far away from it, back when I was wearing a bluetooth wristband. I guess you could do the same, but shut down the computer instead.

If the feds are pinching you for computer crime in a public space, this is exactly why they'd handcuff you, but keep you within ~10 feet of your laptop.

heartbeat monitor.

unless they hit you with the cryo, too.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#280

Post by cultofmetatron »

goodpoint wrote: post #269
cultofmetatron wrote: post #267

This would have saved the guy running the silk road from jail

Most likely not.

they organized it so that he was surrounded by agents. they needed to get access to his laptop while it was open and running. This might have gotten him just enough time to disable it before they made their rush.
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