Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

buskill.in

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 339 posts

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#301

Post by maltfield »

serverlessmom wrote: post #299

Me, a person with no real use for this product but still interested: "Wow this is a great idea! I'll investigate!" Me, a clumsy person watching the video: "Oh no," In all seriousness though, I can see how this product could be useful to someone in very specific circumstances and is also an interesting idea.

BusKill does not ship with destructive triggers.

The current app is limited to locking your screen. Future releases will include soft/hard shutdown. So, by default, your clumsiness would just mean you have to type your password to unlock your screen. Not a big compromise :)

We do have a "LUKS Header Shredder" trigger (which we call self-destruct as it renders all the data on the FDE disk useless), but we (intentionally) don't include it by default and raise the barrier of entry because of the risk of data loss.

We'll be publishing a more detailed write-up on the LUKS Header Shredder in 2 weeks. You can subscribe for updates on our website (buskill.in) or the campaign directly (crowdsupply.com)

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#304

Post by ozfive »

jacquesm wrote: post #208
tarboreus wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that you might only have about a second to kill the device. Yes, you can throw your computer in a bathtub of saltwater or whatever but that's not really the point.

You better make sure that 'tampering with evidence' carries a lower penalty than the thing that you're trying to hide.

How can you be charged with tampering with evidence by epoxying your ram dimms?

It's not as though you tampered with the device after the confiscation. Intent is also hard to prove on such a thing. I didn't want my dimms to fall out at any time if the machine was dropped is pretty good plausible deniability.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#305

Post by intrasight »

amiga-workbench wrote: post #143
intrasight wrote: post #122

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21935359 I vaguely remember there being special hard drives with an "acid release" tab for rapid physical destruction. The military being a prime consumer. For laptops, I'm thinking a Thermite kill switch would be effective.

I've seen thermite tested, its absolutely not enough to damage disk players.

disk player? I'm talking about wrecking SSD drives.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#306

Post by ozfive »

Jerrrry wrote: post #279
vkou wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Brilliant! Going to go work on this now...

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#307

Post by r-w »

dane-pgp wrote: post #274
ASalazarMX wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

I don't think either of has met someone who engages in actual torture, but I imagine they rarely, if ever, “give up”.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#308

Post by LinuxBender »

867-5309 wrote: post #284
LinuxBender wrote: post #40

There are mentions in this thread about false positives, risk of data loss, others. This made me think of Star Trek's use of a self destruct phrase. Obviously their method is too slow, but you could have a "duress" phrase and a "all clear" phrase. User-Defined Phrase: "Please dont kill me", activates "duress" mode. - A daemon listens in the background for a phrase of your choice. When detected, your laptop makes a so…

how would you account for :poker face: "please don't kill me" vs :in a stranglehold, bleeding internally from multiple stab wounds: "PLAYS DON--"

I think at that point your laptop is the least of your concerns. I don't let people get that close.

As a side note, Emerson Knives makes a really nice highly durable set of pocket knives with a "wave" that forces the knife open when you extract it from your pocket. It's many times faster than a switch-blade but legal in most states and durable enough blade and handle to pry anything apart. Check with the laws in your state.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#309

Post by fwip »

dane-pgp wrote: post #210
djweis wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's referred to as rubber hose cryptography.

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…

That seems like a pretty foolish assumption to make of your adversaries/captors.

If a torturer has good reason to believe you have valuable information regarding subject X, they'll simply torture you until they possess that information or you die. If you don't possess the information, you're screwed. If you do possess the information, it's likely that they'll stop after they get what they're after.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#310

Post by r-w »

tbabej wrote: post #7

For the Yubikey owners out there, a while back I wrote a blog post on how to achieve a similar setup using a Yubikey [1]. All it requires is a lanyard to attach the yubikey to. [1]: https://tbabej.com/Yubikey-secure-session-setup/

Won’t do much against my $5 pair of scissors!
Post reply on HN