5 ms·

BusKill can trigger your laptop to lock, shutdown, or self-destruct if it's physically separated from you. I understand lock and shutdown but self-destruct? Re

BusKill can trigger your laptop to lock, shutdown, or self-destruct if it's physically separated from you. I understand lock and shutdown but self-destruct? Really? Your laptop/data is one bump away from destroying itself?

XorNot 5y ago
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.
- dagw 5y ago
  My old job had wipe after 3 (or maybe it was 5) bad pins within N minutes as the required security setting for company phones. The thing I learnt from it is that wiping your phone actually isn't that big a deal and if you've set it up right you can pretty quickly be back up and running.
  - gfosco 5y ago
    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.
    - tata71 5y ago
      Is this convenience worth sending unencrypted backups of your data to Apple? Do they allow truly offline backup and restore?
      - gfosco 5y ago
        For most people, yeah it's worth it. Afaik, yeah they do allow fully offline backup/restore, you don't need to use iCloud for that. I switched away to an Android, so this isn't something I'm taking advantage of personally.
      - jsjohnst 5y ago
        > 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 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.
      - PeterisP 5y ago
        For most people, availability is the key part of security instead of confidentiality, since for them losing their data is both much more likely and much more painful than someone getting a warrant to take their data from Apple.
  - i_like_waiting 5y ago
    The stress I had on 3rd attempt just to discover it is actually 5 attempts... Kind of helps being more conscious about having backup of everything regularly
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  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 keypad unlock feature to prevent pocket dials. The phone could prompt you to type a displayed 4 digit code before typing your actual PIN attempt, for example.
  - kayodelycaon 5y ago
    There is an increasing delay on iPhones. After 6 attempt it stops accepting input for 5 minutes. It gets longer each time after that.
- myself248 5y ago
  Blackberry required you to enter the word "Blackberry" after the fifth try, which would at least prevent butt-dialing from wiping the device. Some kids might figure that out too, but at that point I suppose you had the choice to use a condom and decided not to...
  - Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
    Here a story. I got BB RIM 850 when I was 15ish years old, it was my first communication pre-smartphone device. I stupidly set up to wipe my blackberry if input incorrectly after a few times, and I did this within minutes of first time using it. You can imagine what happened in the next 10 minutes... Yes, I forgot my complicated password and it got wiped. And that rendered my brand-new RIM 850 useless. So, I have to wait 10 days to get a new one.
    - myself248 5y ago
      Useless? Perhaps the functionality changed later; when I used one, entering the password wrong 10 times was the easiest way to factory-reset the device prior to handing it to a new owner. It wasn't useless, just palimpsest.
MarkusWandel 5y ago
There are any number of ways to do this, but one is a LUKS encrypted file system and "self destruct" is wiping out the LUKS header and halting. Only the backup of the LUKS header (not with you at the time!) will restore the data.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  Yeah, I have that on my servers in case somebody tries to hack them. There is a secret to logging to my machines and if you miss it the machine self destructs in a reversible way. Can't give more information but it is pretty easy to boot it again. One thing of note here, don't put LUKS header on any kind of flash (like SSD) or SMR HDD.
  - zionic 5y ago
    >One thing of note here, don't put LUKS header on any kind of flash (like SSD) or SMR HDD. Why not?
    - Anunayj 5y ago
      I'm guessing it is because it's harder to securely wipe SSD/flash drives [0]. Anyway I'm no expert on these topics. [0]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Securely_wipe_disk#Flash_memory https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Securely_wipe_disk#Flash_me...
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      SSDs and drive-managed SMR HDDs do not immediately delete the data. If the system is interrupted after data is deleted there is a good chance you can still get it back. On a normal HDD you still have to wipe the data (ie. physically overwrite it half a dozen times). But this is not possible to execute reliably on SSD or drive-managed SMR HDD.
      - megous 5y ago
        You can reset the SSD's internal encryption key via hdparm, too, once you're done "deleting" luks header. It takes somewhat longer time, but if the SSD firmware is not completely stupid, it will be the equivalent of deleting the LUKS header and running TRIM on the whole device afterwards.
SamBam 5y ago
Presumably the people who opt into the self-destruct option are more concerned with the possibility that they might need to self-destruct and not be able to than of possibility of false alarms. If you've already planned for the possibility of self-destruct, a laptop can be a very transient device. Maybe the only important thing on the laptop is your bitcoin wallet key, but you also have a physical copy stashed in a lockbox somewhere. Maybe you're only using the laptop for its browser, and you've memorized all the passwords you need to enter. Someone snatching the laptop might be doing so to grab the one keyphrase that you logged in with. The actual device is unimportant to you, then.
maltfield 5y ago
Hi, Michael Altfield here (founder of the BusKill project). As described on the crowdsupply page, the cross-platform GUI app (as opposed to the udev rule for which BusKill was originally designed) currently only has the "lock screen" trigger. In the future, we'll add a "shutdown" trigger. While we have developed a "LUKS Header Shredder" trigger (what we call "self-destruct" trigger -- as it renders your FDE disk's data permanently inaccessible), we will never ship that directly with the app by default. There's definitely a use-case for it, but most people probably don't want it. For those that do, we're publishing a guide on how to use the "LUKS Header Shredder" script (tested on Ubuntu and QubesOS) in 2 weeks. For updates, you can subscribe to the website's RSS feed, our website's newsletter (buskill.in), or the crowdsupply.com newsletter.

XorNot 5y ago

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.

dagw 5y ago
My old job had wipe after 3 (or maybe it was 5) bad pins within N minutes as the required security setting for company phones. The thing I learnt from it is that wiping your phone actually isn't that big a deal and if you've set it up right you can pretty quickly be back up and running.
- gfosco 5y ago
  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.
  - tata71 5y ago
    Is this convenience worth sending unencrypted backups of your data to Apple? Do they allow truly offline backup and restore?
    - gfosco 5y ago
      For most people, yeah it's worth it. Afaik, yeah they do allow fully offline backup/restore, you don't need to use iCloud for that. I switched away to an Android, so this isn't something I'm taking advantage of personally.
    - jsjohnst 5y ago
      > 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 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.
    - PeterisP 5y ago
      For most people, availability is the key part of security instead of confidentiality, since for them losing their data is both much more likely and much more painful than someone getting a warrant to take their data from Apple.
- i_like_waiting 5y ago
  The stress I had on 3rd attempt just to discover it is actually 5 attempts... Kind of helps being more conscious about having backup of everything regularly
dane-pgp 5y ago
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 keypad unlock feature to prevent pocket dials. The phone could prompt you to type a displayed 4 digit code before typing your actual PIN attempt, for example.
- kayodelycaon 5y ago
  There is an increasing delay on iPhones. After 6 attempt it stops accepting input for 5 minutes. It gets longer each time after that.
myself248 5y ago
Blackberry required you to enter the word "Blackberry" after the fifth try, which would at least prevent butt-dialing from wiping the device. Some kids might figure that out too, but at that point I suppose you had the choice to use a condom and decided not to...
- Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
  Here a story. I got BB RIM 850 when I was 15ish years old, it was my first communication pre-smartphone device. I stupidly set up to wipe my blackberry if input incorrectly after a few times, and I did this within minutes of first time using it. You can imagine what happened in the next 10 minutes... Yes, I forgot my complicated password and it got wiped. And that rendered my brand-new RIM 850 useless. So, I have to wait 10 days to get a new one.
  - myself248 5y ago
    Useless? Perhaps the functionality changed later; when I used one, entering the password wrong 10 times was the easiest way to factory-reset the device prior to handing it to a new owner. It wasn't useless, just palimpsest.

MarkusWandel 5y ago

There are any number of ways to do this, but one is a LUKS encrypted file system and "self destruct" is wiping out the LUKS header and halting. Only the backup of the LUKS header (not with you at the time!) will restore the data.

lmilcin 5y ago
Yeah, I have that on my servers in case somebody tries to hack them. There is a secret to logging to my machines and if you miss it the machine self destructs in a reversible way. Can't give more information but it is pretty easy to boot it again. One thing of note here, don't put LUKS header on any kind of flash (like SSD) or SMR HDD.
- zionic 5y ago
  >One thing of note here, don't put LUKS header on any kind of flash (like SSD) or SMR HDD. Why not?
  - Anunayj 5y ago
    I'm guessing it is because it's harder to securely wipe SSD/flash drives [0]. Anyway I'm no expert on these topics. [0]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Securely_wipe_disk#Flash_memory https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Securely_wipe_disk#Flash_me...
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    SSDs and drive-managed SMR HDDs do not immediately delete the data. If the system is interrupted after data is deleted there is a good chance you can still get it back. On a normal HDD you still have to wipe the data (ie. physically overwrite it half a dozen times). But this is not possible to execute reliably on SSD or drive-managed SMR HDD.
    - megous 5y ago
      You can reset the SSD's internal encryption key via hdparm, too, once you're done "deleting" luks header. It takes somewhat longer time, but if the SSD firmware is not completely stupid, it will be the equivalent of deleting the LUKS header and running TRIM on the whole device afterwards.

SamBam 5y ago

Presumably the people who opt into the self-destruct option are more concerned with the possibility that they might need to self-destruct and not be able to than of possibility of false alarms. If you've already planned for the possibility of self-destruct, a laptop can be a very transient device. Maybe the only important thing on the laptop is your bitcoin wallet key, but you also have a physical copy stashed in a lockbox somewhere. Maybe you're only using the laptop for its browser, and you've memorized all the passwords you need to enter. Someone snatching the laptop might be doing so to grab the one keyphrase that you logged in with. The actual device is unimportant to you, then.

maltfield 5y ago

Hi, Michael Altfield here (founder of the BusKill project). As described on the crowdsupply page, the cross-platform GUI app (as opposed to the udev rule for which BusKill was originally designed) currently only has the "lock screen" trigger. In the future, we'll add a "shutdown" trigger. While we have developed a "LUKS Header Shredder" trigger (what we call "self-destruct" trigger -- as it renders your FDE disk's data permanently inaccessible), we will never ship that directly with the app by default. There's definitely a use-case for it, but most people probably don't want it. For those that do, we're publishing a guide on how to use the "LUKS Header Shredder" script (tested on Ubuntu and QubesOS) in 2 weeks. For updates, you can subscribe to the website's RSS feed, our website's newsletter (buskill.in), or the crowdsupply.com newsletter.