5 ms·

Chinese SSD offers mission impossible style self destruction

39 points by makethetick 14y ago

Piskvorrr 14y ago
"We have a batch of spontaneously self-destructing drives, now what?" "It's A Feature!" ;) No, seriously, this may be pretty useful, especially since the self-destruct mechanism can be hooked up to something else.
Devilboy 14y ago
Wow! I'd have to buy a stack of these so I can demo it to my friends every now and then.
tferris 14y ago
Why do I need the red button if the green button erases data sufficiently? The red button is impressive but whats the benefit of trashing the SSD? Or does the green button not erase data with 100% reliability?
- klodolph 14y ago
  It's for organizations that have different standards. For example, the DoD has a pretty strict standard w.r.t. erasing traditional magnetic hard drives, even though `dd of=/dev/zero` should be good enough. Attacks at that point are theoretical, but they want defenses against theoretical attacks.
- hristov 14y ago
  For one, the green button may not be fast enough. There are many ways flash cells can be killed en masse. Individually rewriting each cell would take much longer. Someone can then pull the plug and stop the entire process.
- qbrass 14y ago
  The red button works in a few seconds. The green one might take a few minutes.
tferris 14y ago
I guess these buttons have to be installed in some way that they are easily and quickly pressed in case of emergency before the enemy gets the equipment (so w/o opening your notebook i.e.). But then every colleague running past my desk can quickly trash my SSD. Probably a remote triggering the buttons via software makes more sense.
jaems33 14y ago
Smoke and close up damage seem fake.
- sirclueless 14y ago
  Were you expecting more or less of a dramatic moment? I've fried robotic parts before, and you really do get a small puff of acrid smoke. Things usually melt and turn black in my experience instead of cracking, but then, I've never zapped a big array of flash memory.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
seivan 14y ago
Hmmm, so you're using your hard drives in production and suddenly you add another point on the list of "possible bad things that can happen". What if this gets triggered when you don't want it to? You're just adding another list of possible bad shit that can happen. I rather wished it was not built into the device itself, but you connect it to something else. Just add another layer of stuff that can go wrong, and this one fries the disk completely.
mmaunder 14y ago
I think triggering an overwrite of all memory with random data by pressing a short sequence of on-unit buttons would be more practical when you're smuggling data through Jinnah international airport and the authorities seize you.
bobsy 14y ago
I am wondering what the use case for this is. I mean you want to destroy your computing equipment for 2 reasons. 1) Its end of life cycle. In this situation you have plenty of time to do what you want. 2) The enemy is upon you. In this situation you are very short on time. For situation 2 I would have thought burning or blowing up the computers would be a better solution than trying to quickly unscrew the case. Find the cable. Find the hole to plug the cable in. Press the button. Move onto next hard drive / system. For situation 1 I would have thought that destroying them another way would be just as effective. You would also have the advantage of not having self destructing hard drives in key systems which could malfunction / be exploited / triggered because someone pressed the red button to erase by mistake. The only use case I can think of is hackers / pirates / terrorists. I could see them running a computer which has the red button ready to go and taped to the outside of the case to destroy evidence as soon as police try to kick down your front door.
- regomodo 14y ago
  "a better solution than trying to quickly unscrew the case. Find the cable." A dedicated panel switch.
- sneak 14y ago
  > hackers / pirates / terrorists Some of us have been variously labelled all three.
- datagramm 14y ago
  "The only use case I can think of is hackers / pirates / terrorists. I could see them running a computer which has the red button ready to go and taped to the outside of the case to destroy evidence as soon as police try to kick down your front door." I'd imagine this was the manufacturer's intention. If you're going to the trouble of building a computer with an instant self-destruct feature, you'll probably put the button somewhere accessible.
atleta 14y ago
What's the point of the green button (overwriting data with random garbage), if you can have an encrypted drive, which means you have random garbage on it all the time, lest you have the key. Well, maybe that's how it works (erasing the encryption key), though in this case there is no point of doing it remotely. In this case the red button is not that important either. The only thing they could be used is when you are tortured to give away the decryption key (or passphrase) for the drive. By pressing the red button, you could convince the bad guys, that they won't be able to read the data anyway. The green button would not save your arse, since they may just think that you gave them the wrong key.
- VMG 14y ago
  The green button provides security even if your encryption key has been compromised.
- hackermom 14y ago
  The "random garbage" isn't "random garbage" if your key slips out of your hands. If there's a key, there's a looming problem.
demoo 14y ago
This movie clip feels like it could be featured in a dystopian sci-fi movie in which a big corporation has all the power. Just waiting for Deckard to walk by a billboard and see this playing.
JoachimSchipper 14y ago
I'm really surprised that they implement "destroy all data" by physically overwriting the flash cells. This is commonly (e.g. iPhone) done by storing all data encrypted with a randomly-chosen key and just throwing away the key to "delete" it, which is a much faster way to destroy a drive. And it's not like Flash drives can function without a somewhat complicated controller anyway... EDIT: clarified in response to DanBlake (and hackermom, who has just been hellbanned.)
- hackermom 14y ago
  So reading the data, applying crypto on the data, and then writing it back, is faster than just writing random data to the same cells to erase the data? How? Edit - Adding my response here for later reading when the ridiculous hellbanning that filtered me and another user from the discussion is lifted...: There's a problem with your theory here, in how you (and others responding to DanBlake's question) have misunderstood how a flash memory device works. How can the user or operating system, on software level, select a definite block of data for "zeroing out" when the storage medium is an SSD where wear-levelling is always present and ultimately what controls, on lowest possible level, what memory cell data is going to be written to? To my knowledge - and do correct me if I'm wrong - this is not doable on an SSD, and you thusly have to overwrite the entire SSD to be certain that the memory cell holding the key is erased. This is how flash memory controllers work - they always write data to the next free block, remap the old block and then marks it as unoccupied in the BAM. If the case is a mobile unit that may have a small portion of separate PRAM or similar where you can store crypto keys, the principle is the same there as that's also a flash type memory, even if a much smaller one that is faster to erase. However, that solution isn't usually available in a "normal computer", nor available to a "normal OS", which are the two targets of SSD drives.
- DanBlake 14y ago
  Can you explain why adding a encryption routine is faster than just blind overwriting the data with 0's? Genuinely curious as it seems that would not make sense, if you overwrote it with zeros in a comparable, logical manner.
  - 14y ago
JonnieCache 14y ago
I just wasted 5 minutes trying to find a link to post here. It was an article where two hackers decided to actually try out all the various hard disk destruction methods people postulate, with a view to making a remote self-destruct mechanism. They posted lots of photos of different things they tried, and an amusing write up of their escapades: they burned them with fire, attacked them with acid, masonry drills, other chemicals, almost maiming themselves and annihilating their garage a couple of times. If anyone could dregde up the URL for me I'd be most appreciative.
- humbert 14y ago
  The article is likely about the talk "And That's How I Lost My Eye: Exploring Emergency Data Destruction" at DEFCON 19 [1]. A blog post [2] gives a quick overview, and the 50 minute talk [3] is very entertaining. There's no whitepaper, and I couldn't quickly find a more detailed article. [1] https://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc-archives/dc-19-archive.html#Lawson https://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc-archives/dc-19-archive.... [2] http://www.sportsfirings.com/?p=4959 http://www.sportsfirings.com/?p=4959 [3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXbq0BFzQQg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXbq0BFzQQg
  - JonnieCache 14y ago
    Thanks muchly. I think it was probably the video that I saw. EDIT: yep, it was. You should all watch it, it is most diverting.
- DanBC 14y ago
  I'd be interested to see that link! Perhaps it's this? DEFCON 19: And That's How I Lost My Eye: Exploring Emergency Data Destruction (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXbq0BFzQQg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXbq0BFzQQg)
shimon_e 14y ago
Being a Chinese solution I sort of wished they just attached some fireworks. :(
twp 14y ago
Does this have an internal battery to ensure that the destruction is complete even if the power source is removed? Otherwise there's an obvious weakness: before raiding the house, cut the power: this will prevent the SSD user from being able to destroy their data.
- makethetick 14y ago
  I imagine if someone is serious enough to be using this, they'd be running a UPS too.

39 points by makethetick 14y ago

"We have a batch of spontaneously self-destructing drives, now what?" "It's A Feature!" ;) No, seriously, this may be pretty useful, especially since the self-destruct mechanism can be hooked up to something else.

Devilboy 14y ago

Wow! I'd have to buy a stack of these so I can demo it to my friends every now and then.

tferris 14y ago

Why do I need the red button if the green button erases data sufficiently? The red button is impressive but whats the benefit of trashing the SSD? Or does the green button not erase data with 100% reliability?

klodolph 14y ago
It's for organizations that have different standards. For example, the DoD has a pretty strict standard w.r.t. erasing traditional magnetic hard drives, even though `dd of=/dev/zero` should be good enough. Attacks at that point are theoretical, but they want defenses against theoretical attacks.
hristov 14y ago
For one, the green button may not be fast enough. There are many ways flash cells can be killed en masse. Individually rewriting each cell would take much longer. Someone can then pull the plug and stop the entire process.
qbrass 14y ago
The red button works in a few seconds. The green one might take a few minutes.

tferris 14y ago

I guess these buttons have to be installed in some way that they are easily and quickly pressed in case of emergency before the enemy gets the equipment (so w/o opening your notebook i.e.). But then every colleague running past my desk can quickly trash my SSD. Probably a remote triggering the buttons via software makes more sense.

jaems33 14y ago

Smoke and close up damage seem fake.

sirclueless 14y ago
Were you expecting more or less of a dramatic moment? I've fried robotic parts before, and you really do get a small puff of acrid smoke. Things usually melt and turn black in my experience instead of cracking, but then, I've never zapped a big array of flash memory.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

seivan 14y ago

Hmmm, so you're using your hard drives in production and suddenly you add another point on the list of "possible bad things that can happen". What if this gets triggered when you don't want it to? You're just adding another list of possible bad shit that can happen. I rather wished it was not built into the device itself, but you connect it to something else. Just add another layer of stuff that can go wrong, and this one fries the disk completely.

mmaunder 14y ago

I think triggering an overwrite of all memory with random data by pressing a short sequence of on-unit buttons would be more practical when you're smuggling data through Jinnah international airport and the authorities seize you.

bobsy 14y ago

I am wondering what the use case for this is. I mean you want to destroy your computing equipment for 2 reasons. 1) Its end of life cycle. In this situation you have plenty of time to do what you want. 2) The enemy is upon you. In this situation you are very short on time. For situation 2 I would have thought burning or blowing up the computers would be a better solution than trying to quickly unscrew the case. Find the cable. Find the hole to plug the cable in. Press the button. Move onto next hard drive / system. For situation 1 I would have thought that destroying them another way would be just as effective. You would also have the advantage of not having self destructing hard drives in key systems which could malfunction / be exploited / triggered because someone pressed the red button to erase by mistake. The only use case I can think of is hackers / pirates / terrorists. I could see them running a computer which has the red button ready to go and taped to the outside of the case to destroy evidence as soon as police try to kick down your front door.

regomodo 14y ago
"a better solution than trying to quickly unscrew the case. Find the cable." A dedicated panel switch.
sneak 14y ago
> hackers / pirates / terrorists Some of us have been variously labelled all three.
datagramm 14y ago
"The only use case I can think of is hackers / pirates / terrorists. I could see them running a computer which has the red button ready to go and taped to the outside of the case to destroy evidence as soon as police try to kick down your front door." I'd imagine this was the manufacturer's intention. If you're going to the trouble of building a computer with an instant self-destruct feature, you'll probably put the button somewhere accessible.

atleta 14y ago

What's the point of the green button (overwriting data with random garbage), if you can have an encrypted drive, which means you have random garbage on it all the time, lest you have the key. Well, maybe that's how it works (erasing the encryption key), though in this case there is no point of doing it remotely. In this case the red button is not that important either. The only thing they could be used is when you are tortured to give away the decryption key (or passphrase) for the drive. By pressing the red button, you could convince the bad guys, that they won't be able to read the data anyway. The green button would not save your arse, since they may just think that you gave them the wrong key.

VMG 14y ago
The green button provides security even if your encryption key has been compromised.
hackermom 14y ago
The "random garbage" isn't "random garbage" if your key slips out of your hands. If there's a key, there's a looming problem.

demoo 14y ago

This movie clip feels like it could be featured in a dystopian sci-fi movie in which a big corporation has all the power. Just waiting for Deckard to walk by a billboard and see this playing.

JoachimSchipper 14y ago

I'm really surprised that they implement "destroy all data" by physically overwriting the flash cells. This is commonly (e.g. iPhone) done by storing all data encrypted with a randomly-chosen key and just throwing away the key to "delete" it, which is a much faster way to destroy a drive. And it's not like Flash drives can function without a somewhat complicated controller anyway... EDIT: clarified in response to DanBlake (and hackermom, who has just been hellbanned.)

hackermom 14y ago
So reading the data, applying crypto on the data, and then writing it back, is faster than just writing random data to the same cells to erase the data? How? Edit - Adding my response here for later reading when the ridiculous hellbanning that filtered me and another user from the discussion is lifted...: There's a problem with your theory here, in how you (and others responding to DanBlake's question) have misunderstood how a flash memory device works. How can the user or operating system, on software level, select a definite block of data for "zeroing out" when the storage medium is an SSD where wear-levelling is always present and ultimately what controls, on lowest possible level, what memory cell data is going to be written to? To my knowledge - and do correct me if I'm wrong - this is not doable on an SSD, and you thusly have to overwrite the entire SSD to be certain that the memory cell holding the key is erased. This is how flash memory controllers work - they always write data to the next free block, remap the old block and then marks it as unoccupied in the BAM. If the case is a mobile unit that may have a small portion of separate PRAM or similar where you can store crypto keys, the principle is the same there as that's also a flash type memory, even if a much smaller one that is faster to erase. However, that solution isn't usually available in a "normal computer", nor available to a "normal OS", which are the two targets of SSD drives.
DanBlake 14y ago
Can you explain why adding a encryption routine is faster than just blind overwriting the data with 0's? Genuinely curious as it seems that would not make sense, if you overwrote it with zeros in a comparable, logical manner.
- 14y ago

JonnieCache 14y ago

I just wasted 5 minutes trying to find a link to post here. It was an article where two hackers decided to actually try out all the various hard disk destruction methods people postulate, with a view to making a remote self-destruct mechanism. They posted lots of photos of different things they tried, and an amusing write up of their escapades: they burned them with fire, attacked them with acid, masonry drills, other chemicals, almost maiming themselves and annihilating their garage a couple of times. If anyone could dregde up the URL for me I'd be most appreciative.

humbert 14y ago
The article is likely about the talk "And That's How I Lost My Eye: Exploring Emergency Data Destruction" at DEFCON 19 [1]. A blog post [2] gives a quick overview, and the 50 minute talk [3] is very entertaining. There's no whitepaper, and I couldn't quickly find a more detailed article. [1] https://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc-archives/dc-19-archive.html#Lawson https://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc-archives/dc-19-archive.... [2] http://www.sportsfirings.com/?p=4959 http://www.sportsfirings.com/?p=4959 [3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXbq0BFzQQg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXbq0BFzQQg
- JonnieCache 14y ago
  Thanks muchly. I think it was probably the video that I saw. EDIT: yep, it was. You should all watch it, it is most diverting.
DanBC 14y ago
I'd be interested to see that link! Perhaps it's this? DEFCON 19: And That's How I Lost My Eye: Exploring Emergency Data Destruction (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXbq0BFzQQg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXbq0BFzQQg)

shimon_e 14y ago

Being a Chinese solution I sort of wished they just attached some fireworks. :(

twp 14y ago

Does this have an internal battery to ensure that the destruction is complete even if the power source is removed? Otherwise there's an obvious weakness: before raiding the house, cut the power: this will prevent the SSD user from being able to destroy their data.

makethetick 14y ago
I imagine if someone is serious enough to be using this, they'd be running a UPS too.