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Physically-Secure 'ORWL' Computer Expands Its Open Source Policy (crowdsupply.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the opening-ORWL dept.

Last month DESIGN Shift successfully crowdfunded their physically-secure (and open source) ORWL computer. But this week long-time Slashdot reader Dr. Crash raised concerns that "releasing only the equivalent of 'assembly code' (PDFs of the schematic, Gerber files) and requiring an NDA for the BIOS and mechanical security just doesn't cut it... " Slashdot contacted the company, which two hours ago posted a response: After feedback from some of you and more internal discussion, we've decided to open the schematics source files under CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0... Our reasoning is that the benefit of being able to much more easily inspect the inner workings of ORWL far outweighs the minimal risk of infringement by a third party. Even if a third party does decide to copy ORWL for profit, they would quickly discover the real work is in the layout, not the schematic, as is the case in most hardware...

[T]he firmware will be licensed under GPL 3 rather than CC-BY-SA 4.0. This change is in line with the Creative Commons's own recommendations regarding software licensing. We also realized that some of our firmware uses libraries provided under NDA. We will clearly identify which components are protected under NDA and how to go about securing such an NDA.
They've already released a .zip file of their schematics, and in addition announced that "we're committing to opening the PCB layout sources once we've sold a total of 3,000 ORWL unit." Their announcement includes a link for feedback from the community.

5 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. First of its kind... by mlts · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm actually impressed by this machine. Yes, a new NUC can probably do more, but the ORWL with a glass case is pretty impressive when it comes to security, especially if it can handle virtualization with the supported Ubuntu distro, so one can use it to run Windows 10 in a secure manner if need be. PCs designed for security from the ground up are not very common.

    My only wish would be if they could add two ports for a fiber optic cable loop. This could be S/PDIF or any form factor. The goal is to have a fiber optic cable that could be looped around a desk or sturdy object, similar to a Kensington lock. If the cable is cut or unplugged, the machine goes into a locked state. This way, it turns the theft into "just" hardware.

  2. Several ways in, or it's useless by raymorris · · Score: 3, Interesting

    > There's got to be a way into this thing.

    If there aren't ways to get data in and out, it's kinda pointless as a computer. That's what computers do, of course, they accept input, process it, and produce output. So yeah, there are ways in.

    Physically haven't seen the hardware, so we don't know what the "wire mesh" looks like - perhaps you could drill a couple of half inch holes through the case. Every $10,000 safe can be drilled without triggering the relockers, so you can bet that this can be as well. Most locksmiths drill to just unlock a safe; I drilled holes in the bottom of one and then completely disassembled the mechanism using long tools, like building a ship in a bottle.

    For example, this computer has an HDMI port and two USB ports. I bet those aren't covered with a fine mesh screen, so you can probably drill them out and and start working from there.

    1. Re:Several ways in, or it's useless by archi1 · · Score: 2

      You can't drill through the mesh. There are some picture on the page here https://www.google.com.tw/sear... The secure controller is designed to prevent drill, die opening and other temperature attacks. Side channel protection is also included. So you will need to sharpen your pencil to find a way in. We also target FIPS 140-2 certification and it will be verified by third parties... A lot more details on the security features here; https://www.crowdsupply.com/de... HDMI and USB data are obviously accessible from the external. We recommend using QUBES OS to isolate peripherals and processes...

    2. Re:Several ways in, or it's useless by StefanC. · · Score: 2

      Let me answer to some of the points you make. 1/2 inch holes through the mesh..... Unnoticed. This is a picture of the mesh we implemented. Both trace width and pitch are sub millimeter. A secure microcontroller monitors the integrity of them with pseudo random signals. http://media.bestofmicro.com/I... USB and uHDMI not covered by the security mesh. As you can see in the image, the actual connectors are excluded from the mesh, any connection to the main board is covered by the mesh. So yes, you can try your luck with the USB connections. The USB ports as all physically disconnected as soon as the user is further away from the device than 10meters. So you would deal with two dead USB connections. If you move the device while the user is further away than 10meters it will force a shutdown of the Intel Subsystem. We are trying to make it really really hard to gain access to the device and your data. Thanks

  3. You described how to read the entire drive by raymorris · · Score: 2

    > attach some probe wires to the SATA

    Once you have probes on the SATA pins, you can read the entire drive. Just plug the other end into the USB-SATA adapter on your laptop and dump the drive with ddrescue. If the ORWL isn't busy reading and writing to the drive at the same time, you won't even get errors causing ddrescue to retry those sectors.

    > The encryption for the SSD is not stored in main RAM, it's stored in the SSD

    Which is good in some ways, but bad in this case because as long as the drive is powered up, it remembers the key internally and decrypts the data for you - and you don't need to know the key in order to read the data after boot, only to boot.