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BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

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Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#311

Post by eloisius »

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's not really making the case for clever crypto solutions. Assange is rotting in prison and is probably going to die in the US in the near future. What secret information could he be protecting at this point?

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#312

Post by paulcole »

martin_a wrote: post #201
paulcole wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably nobody!

And you don't think there should at least be some possibility to hold someone liable in case something goes _terribly_ wrong?

Yes, but I’m also aware that the possibility is roughly 0% if a person is truly determined to run a dangerous scam, regardless of what regulations are put in place.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#313

Post by kingcharles »

at_a_remove wrote: post #275
kingcharles wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is. I filed suit for a lot of different claims related to this, the only one that stuck was the coerced statements. I filed in 2015 but it is still working through the federal court.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#314

Post by [deleted] »

maltfield wrote: post #301
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 (intentional…

[deleted]

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#315

Post by bob-4 »

maltfield wrote: post #301
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 (intentional…

Might be a good idea to remove "self-destruct" from the front page your marketing if it's not intended for the masses. Or at the very least, explain that it's not a default behavior. While you were able to explain that here, others will be hesitant to adopt without the context.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#316

Post by snypher »

Jerrrry wrote: post #82
snypher wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought standard practice was to run no battery, AC adapter only mode.

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

I think would work only if the user wasn't at the keys. Plus if the adversary has full access to the hardware then what are they doing under my library table!

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#317

Post by arpa »

gambiting wrote: post #291
Someone wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want those signs of life to be convincing, it should include all kinds of history without long gaps, such as: - email, including recently received and sent emails - web browser history - system logs - software updates In practice, I think it’s impossible to do that. If the police discovers, for example, that your system logs show your machine was off for a week, but they also just saw you reset it, what do you…

>>but they also just saw you reset it, what do you tell them? That you're not a computer expert and have no idea why your computer wasn't keeping logs correctly?

not an expert, yet you set up an encrypted partition?

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#318

Post by arpa »

Someone wrote: post #288
arpa wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you want those signs of life to be convincing, it should include all kinds of history without long gaps, such as: - email, including recently received and sent emails - web browser history - system logs - software updates In practice, I think it’s impossible to do that. If the police discovers, for example, that your system logs show your machine was off for a week, but they also just saw you reset it, what do you…

this is a real problem, yes; i find encrypted volume in swap partition actually provides better plausible deniability. "I was told it should be 2x the size of RAM," - says a guy with 512G of ram and swapoff.

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#319

Post by stickfigure »

geoduck14 wrote: post #191
stickfigure wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

How is that supposed to happen?

Re: BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops

#320

Post by somedude895 »

alias_neo wrote: post #184
somedude895 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need something not for when your laptop is removed from you, but when you are removed from your laptop. Yeah, this wouldn't have saved the admin of Alphabay, a now defunct darknet market. The FBI staged a car crash outside his house so when he'd come out to see what was going on they could arrest him and likely get to his laptop while it was unlocked. Then again, he really shouldn't have left his computer unloc…

That seems like a great expense to go to for the sake of a possibility the guy might do more than peek out of the window and then go back to what they were doing. Surely there were a bunch of other options to consider before "let's stage a car crash"?

I heard the story on the Darknet Diaries podcast.

This article on Vice[0] seems to confirm it:

> Phirippidis told the audience that the bureau managed to corner Cazes and arrest him while he was still logged in as the admin of AlphaBay by ramming a car through the front gate of his home in Thailand.

[0] https://www.vice.com/en/article/59wwxx/fbi-airs-alexandre-ca...

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