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USBKill Transforms a Thumb Drive Into an "Anti-Forensic" Device
Orome1 writes with a snippet from a report at net-security.org; a hacker going by Hephaestos has shared with the world a Python script that, when put on an USB thumb drive, turns the device in an effective kill switch for the computer to which it's plugged in. USBkill, as the programmer dubbed it, "waits for a change on your USB ports, then immediately kills your computer." The device would be useful "in case the police comes busting in, or steals your laptop from you when you are at a public library," Hephaestos explained.
Doesn't TrueCrypt support full drive encryption and USB-based hardware keys for decryption? That sounds like all this "invention" does. It doesn't actually kill your computer.
I mean my USB hub never drops my mouse connection or anything like that. So there is no chance of a false positive.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Then the drive is still encrypted and they can't use it. Am I supposed to end this with, bitch?
Here's the source:
https://github.com/hephaest0s/...
What's next - a tutorial on how to press the power button?
So it's a deadman's switch basically.
"In case the police come busting in" is a condition typically followed by a hailstorm of bullets here in the United States. Afterwards, assuming you have a winning complexion, charges are fabricated and officers exhonorated.
Our prosecution also works similar to a firehose. Typically if youre arrested for loitering or driving while black, youll be charged with resisting arrest and a large slew of other charges that may not even apply to your specific encounter. Once in jail a member of the prosecution team will approach you with a laundry list of offenses and the threat of decades of years in jail. Mercifully they will offer a plea bargain that, should you choose to simply plead guilty, youll only spend a fraction of that time in prison. If you cant afford a lawyer, and dont have a firm grasp of legal proceedings yourself, this option is generally chosen.
Wiping the contents of your laptop, or refusing to give a password in the US, is generally met with unfavourable consequences. Indefinite forcible detention at border checkpoints without charges, for example, befell moxy marlinspike. computing chicanery in general that goes beyond the relm of 'good consumer' will find you hounded to the end of your days, as was the case of the late Aaron Schwartz. Given my options, id rather feign ignorance than quietly activate a duress payload.
Good people go to bed earlier.
How do you pee if this is attached to you? Do you keep a bunch of one-gallon jugs next to your desk?
usually they do everything they can to keep the power on including splicing into the power cables or pulling the socket from the wall and hooking it up to a phase locking UPS so they can take the computer still powered on. This is usually combined with a mouse wiggler to keep screensavers and sleep from kicking in.
For reference:
http://www.cru-inc.com/product...
Well, there's new thing called a laptop, which has some newfangled technology called like a bartier or battery or some shit like that. I don't know, it all goes way over my head, but as I understand it, it allows you to unplug a computer from the wall without it turning off. I'll tell ya man, it's true what they say, the future is now.
hes saying that if you keep all your ports filled at all times, and someone removes something to start coping or what-not, then it just shuts down
Its kind of grey area. Full disk encryption could itself be though of in those terms. I mean why are ciphering literally every block of information your store? Certainly it must be because you have something to hide right.
If you immediate start destroying the equipment when the cops show up that is a problems but in the case we have a device that has a normal operating behavior of putting itself into a secured state (by shutting down) whenever your wrist leave its proximity. Its not illegal (yet) to use a secure device. I would expect a good lawyer could spin this one to your favor.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Python is cross platform, you can use it on any OS.
aaaaaaa
Reminds me of something I wrote back around 1981. Working with the early IBM PC at the machine code level several flaws surfaced and for fun I packaged them all together in the boot sector of a 5 1/4" floppy which we put in a "break glass" box and put on the wall (There were no hard drives yet, the XT wasn't out yet). If you placed the floppy in the boot drive it would destroy the hardware in a few seconds. First, there was a bit on the original IBM display adapter (mono text only) which would lock the horizontal sweep on the standard IBM monitor forcing the horizontal output power transistor to overheat and burn out. You would see the display image collapse while the monitor would squeal while smoke (literally!) would come out the sides and back, and die with a $200 repair to fix it. Second, there were no stops on the head movement on those original floppy drives - with the right loop they would step out until the heads fell off inside the case with a pair of clunks if you had a 2 drive system. (Not a difficult repair, but you had to know what your were doing and get into the floppy drives themselves to fix it.) Finally, the speaker ran off of a shift register which could be loaded with a really nasty PWM sound and set to free run. With interrupts disabled and the CPU halted, the machine sat there smoking with a very loud nerve-rattling siren, completely dead and unable to boot. It would require major physical repairs to get it working again. The monitor would stink for weeks afterwards.
What everyone in this thread is overlooking is it basically does a 'shutdown now'.
trivially could be done with a power button and changing the acpi power settings to shutdown instantly rather than prompt you then shutdown.
The function of this device is grossly overestimated in the comments
Just set up a script on the machine looking for a specific USB device, start shutdown if the device is not present. This is pretty common stuff, hell my old Lenovo laptop has a smartcard slot in it that would do the same thing if the card was removed.
In fact if you look you can find the same thing all over the place for the last decade on many hacking sites, even back in the late 90's this kind of stuff was on the "scene" I had back to back modems in telcom rooms inside boxes that if the box was opened it dumped 110V into the modem logic boards so that when discovered they would self destruct.
Most "hackers" today probably dont even own a buttset.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Even back then I knew stealing was wrong.... but unauthorized writing of new files never bothered me.
So I used a race condition I found in the Macintosh security software at school and used it to copy icons of porn over all the desktop icons, so anyone trying to launch word got tits.
And of course, I did it as my person Senior year prank, on the way out the door when all the other classes still had a couple of weeks, on the last day for seniors I slipped unnoticed into the computer lab, did my deed, and slipped out, and walked out of the building.
They never suspected someone without the password did it (a bunch of people had the password of course).
I ran into some of the guys from the lower class years later and got a "wow that was you!"
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Maybe, but, I like this better personally because its more immediate. "USB attached to the wrist" scenario is a clear winner because it means the system is shutting down before they even realize what just happened and they have little or no time to respond, there is precious little they can really do to prevent that stick from being pulled.
In the past a friend of mine and I were musing about a setup like this, but our idea was a bit more drastic and less portable.... no battery at all, and power wired to a switch that opens or closes with the door to the room, so just opening the door to the room would kill the system
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Your honor, they were screaming at me, with guns pointed at me, to 'put your hands up! put your motherfucking hands up, or I will fucking shoot you dead!'
So I put my hands up. I wasn't about to risk death to explain to them that this would cause my computer to shut down.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
If anyone needs someone to talk on how intimidating such a situation can be, they can just ask my wife, she has ended up in situations like this a couple of times just trying to get to work.
Here in Boston the local public transit (MBTA) thugs have a serious TSA hard on. They actually run random bag swabbing checkpoints at stations. In theory, you can refuse and leave, walk right out. In practice, when my wife tried to say no, she had one officer yelling "we have a resistor" as she was suddenly surrounded by people telling her what to do and found herself being railroaded to the the swabber and into the station....so much for a right to refuse and walk out.
Its amazing how intimidating a gang of armed men yelling at you can be.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Sadly in a cases like that I kind of which it would happen to me. I can be a big enough ass hole that I would follow up with a Deprivation of rights under color of law case. As an added bonus you can go directly after the party or parties involved and they don't get government protection. I really wish more people would peruse these types of cases against government officials' overreaches.
Time to offend someone
This won't work. I have cats.