4 ms·

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 c

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 switch. "Where is the data?!", they ask me. "I don't know what you're talking about!" They beat me down, then one thug says to the other: "Hey comrade, look, maybe it's all on this laptop?" — "Let's see". The laptop doesn't boot. They turn to me: "Funny how this laptop of yours doesn't even boot, why would you have a non-working toy?" I play dumb, they train their guns on my head. "Okay, okay," I say, "the data on this laptop has self-destructed, you're not getting it, no one is getting it!" — "Really?" — "Really!" — "It's good, motherfucker," says the thug and double-taps me in the head.

The-Bus 5y ago
XKCD #538 ("Security") explains this succinctly. https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
- goodpoint 5y ago
  XKCD makes the same mistake as the parent of confusing a legal threat with a threat of bodily harm.
aydwi 5y ago
You joke but this might have happened already
- WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
  This has happened, it was just that no technical gizmo would have saved the guy. I cannot imagine how. In case of a corrupt government, if they wanted to lock you up, they wouldn't strictly need any evidence at all. Having a gizmo that can potentially destroy evidence is a bonus. Otherwise, they will throw you behind the bars for 18 years for jaywalking. If you had a controversial businessman and his thugs after you, destroying the evidence only means they wouldn't have to destroy it themselves after having killed you. In any case, if you're working on sensitive stuff and you want to pretend you're writing some innocent poetry, I don't think any kind of jamesbondian device would help you look inconspicuous.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    > if you're working on sensitive stuff and you want to pretend you're writing some innocent poetry For plausible deniability, you need a second account on the machine that has all your poetry in. Then, when the thugs (or border guards) tell you to log into your laptop, you use the other username and password and say "Feel free to read all this poetry. I'm particularly proud of the one called 'My government isn't corrupt at all'." Also, in this scenario, you should probably store your raw information (with the names of innocents redacted) in a public cloud somewhere outside your jurisdiction, encrypted, and have a time-based dead man's switch (hosted somewhere else) which sends an email to your colleagues containing the URL and decryption key.
maltfield 5y ago
In such a scenario, you're right that if the attacker will use physical violence against you, of course the device wouldn't save you from bodily harm. But what about your sources? In this situation (if you actually can't remember the anonymous email address of your source), it's not your life that's being saved -- it's the identity and the life of the whistleblower.
- WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
  I’m pretty sure there are rules of informational hygiene for cases like this, and they mostly grate on instincts of any geek obsessed with having all the data neatly organized, cross-referenced, and persisted. You can add any number of security layers, but you should always presume someone might get their hands onto whatever you’re working on at the moment in cleartext and you want any damage to be minimal.
new_stranger 5y ago
You're confusing attacks. What you describe is very useful when there is not threat to your being. You just want the data gone. However, if you are under physical threat then this is still useful because 1) you can protect witnesses and others and 2) you can make forwarding this information to remote sources part of the self-destruct. That is, "Sorry, I no longer have the data - the laptop self-destructed. The data and my name and location have been posted to reddit publicly or sent to a list of contacts in six countries" The point is, they want 1) you to stop and 2) to recover the data. You can bargain for your life by setting up the actions taken should this be activated.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
If they send assassins to your home because you know too much, OPSEC no longer matters. You're as good as dead if you don't immediately escalate to deadly force. Instead of destroying data, the computer should be uploading and publishing as much of it as possible so that whatever you're doing can't be stopped no matter what happens to you.

The-Bus 5y ago

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

goodpoint 5y ago
XKCD makes the same mistake as the parent of confusing a legal threat with a threat of bodily harm.

aydwi 5y ago

You joke but this might have happened already

WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
This has happened, it was just that no technical gizmo would have saved the guy. I cannot imagine how. In case of a corrupt government, if they wanted to lock you up, they wouldn't strictly need any evidence at all. Having a gizmo that can potentially destroy evidence is a bonus. Otherwise, they will throw you behind the bars for 18 years for jaywalking. If you had a controversial businessman and his thugs after you, destroying the evidence only means they wouldn't have to destroy it themselves after having killed you. In any case, if you're working on sensitive stuff and you want to pretend you're writing some innocent poetry, I don't think any kind of jamesbondian device would help you look inconspicuous.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > if you're working on sensitive stuff and you want to pretend you're writing some innocent poetry For plausible deniability, you need a second account on the machine that has all your poetry in. Then, when the thugs (or border guards) tell you to log into your laptop, you use the other username and password and say "Feel free to read all this poetry. I'm particularly proud of the one called 'My government isn't corrupt at all'." Also, in this scenario, you should probably store your raw information (with the names of innocents redacted) in a public cloud somewhere outside your jurisdiction, encrypted, and have a time-based dead man's switch (hosted somewhere else) which sends an email to your colleagues containing the URL and decryption key.

maltfield 5y ago

In such a scenario, you're right that if the attacker will use physical violence against you, of course the device wouldn't save you from bodily harm. But what about your sources? In this situation (if you actually can't remember the anonymous email address of your source), it's not your life that's being saved -- it's the identity and the life of the whistleblower.

WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
I’m pretty sure there are rules of informational hygiene for cases like this, and they mostly grate on instincts of any geek obsessed with having all the data neatly organized, cross-referenced, and persisted. You can add any number of security layers, but you should always presume someone might get their hands onto whatever you’re working on at the moment in cleartext and you want any damage to be minimal.

new_stranger 5y ago

You're confusing attacks. What you describe is very useful when there is not threat to your being. You just want the data gone. However, if you are under physical threat then this is still useful because 1) you can protect witnesses and others and 2) you can make forwarding this information to remote sources part of the self-destruct. That is, "Sorry, I no longer have the data - the laptop self-destructed. The data and my name and location have been posted to reddit publicly or sent to a list of contacts in six countries" The point is, they want 1) you to stop and 2) to recover the data. You can bargain for your life by setting up the actions taken should this be activated.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

If they send assassins to your home because you know too much, OPSEC no longer matters. You're as good as dead if you don't immediately escalate to deadly force. Instead of destroying data, the computer should be uploading and publishing as much of it as possible so that whatever you're doing can't be stopped no matter what happens to you.