By the way, making other people secure is big business. For that reason I can see a pointy haired decision maker buying loads of these for the functionaries to use. I wouldn't really want one of these for myself though.
ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer
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Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it potentially less secure than an iPhone? Attackers can't scan the RAM because of the enclosure, whereas they might do so on an iPhone, correct?
Correct me if I am wrong, but if that was possible, wouldn't the FBI have had a lot less of a challenging time getting the data off of that guy's phone?
They didn't have a challenging time, they just paid some hackers to do it[0].
What they wanted was to set a legal precedent[1] which would allow any law enforcement agency to force manufacturers to subvert the security of their devices on demand.
[0]http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-encryption-fbi-idUSK...
[1]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/25/fbi-direc...
Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer
#73Having some physical security in a OSS-hacker-compliant form factor is really quite nice. This is not going to replace a proper HSM, and almost certainly is a less secure place to store your data than an iPhone; but it's a good start for those unwilling to give up on (the performance of) PCs. It's worth noting that QubesOS, which is supported by this system, protects against e.g. USB-based attacks by running a virtua…
ORWL will go in stand-by if the user is further than 10meters away from the device, if moved when away, it will shut down.
If the hardware is tampered with, or chilled, the SSD encryption key is deleted within milliseconds. iPhone or any other consumer product at this point have less or no physical protection. The physical level of protection is taken from the payment industry standard and applied to the consumer device.
The scanning of RAM content and possibilities of EM scanning, side channel attacks are all covered in the secure section of ORWL by the Maxim Secure controller. Nothing is impossible, but we tried to make it really really hard to get hold of the SSD encryption key and what we refer to as the Root of Trust.
Qubes is really helpful with many other attack vectors.
Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's criminally irresponsible to sell such a computer, because it will easily result in data loss and not all users are educated enough to understand the consequences of such a flawed "security" design. Of course, you can claim that it's ultimately the customers fault in this case, and I agree, but they should nevertheless expect some lawsuits. There is always a tradeoff between security and data integrity, something…
The same argument could be applied to nearly any product. Knowing how to use the product is the user's responsibility and helping educate users is the manufacturer's responsibility. If you don't have data back ups, regardless of the type of computer, then you're setting yourself up for disappointment.
> Knowing how to use the product is the user's responsibility
Not all products are the same. It's irresponsible, but maybe good business strategy, to presume a complicated computer, which runs software that no human can hold in their head is the same as other products people are accustomed to.
Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
how is it "criminally" irresponsible on a personal computer? I should be able to delete my own data whenever i want to, unless ordered by a court not to. Also OpenBSD has had the ability to wipe the system on failed password attempts for many years now.
It's criminally irresponsible to sell such a computer, because it will easily result in data loss and not all users are educated enough to understand the consequences of such a flawed "security" design. Of course, you can claim that it's ultimately the customers fault in this case, and I agree, but they should nevertheless expect some lawsuits. There is always a tradeoff between security and data integrity, something…
> tamper-evident seals.
Doesn't help when the tamperer isn't hiding
Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer
#76Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer
#77Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer
#78Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Didn't know about this. They should have gone with AMD.
If you want to get away from that kind of thing, right now I think you're options are POWER8: https://www.raptorengineering.com/TALOS/prerelease.php AMD has something similar to the Intel Management Engine: https://libreboot.org/faq/#amd
If only I had ~8000 dollars to spend on a desktop I'd be waist-deep in porting Linux packages.
Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer
#80Appreciate the fully secure boot process, even if the Intel situation isn't fully secure. Wish I had an external uC with burned-in firmware on my machine that I trusted to verify my BIOS firmware and orchestrate the boot process.
Thanks. We agree with your statement fully. We are raising the threshold of entry to your personal data substantially, but we are still far from perfection. We did a number of steps up in the security ladder. We are also taking steps to minimize ME abilities in ORWL. Our long term plan is to limit ME capabilities using the BIOS configuration. We just released the SOW of the 1st BIOS with Eltan on the WiKi.
https://www.orwl.org/wiki/index.php?title=File%3ASowDESIGN-S...
We are planning to investigate how to further limit ME capabilities with Eltan and we will update the SOW as we make progress.
We also believe that the current secure micro controller implementation severely limit the ME capability through power management and the SSD key management.