User Controls

Paranoid Security Measures

  1. #1
    aldra JIDF Controlled Opposition
    I've been thinking up some hardware hacks for the ultra-paranoid... I remember discussing ideas like this with Prometheum on totse. this is a place for any sort of idea, regardless of whether you plan on actually doing it or not (I do intend on building a few)... pictures would be nice if you go ahead with it. please verify whether it's technically feasible before suggesting laser guns and low yield nuclear warheads and shit.

    1. remote harddrive destruction - viable for a server or desktop, not so much a laptop. mix a small package of thermate (the military adds ~3% sulphur b/v to their thermite for a hotter, faster burn) and mount it above the HDD bay, run a nichrome wire through it as an igniter, hook the nichrome up to a battery pack via a 3v relay. control the relay using either a dev board like a raspi's GPIOs or raw IOs on the motherboard. write a script to put power to the GPIO, which in turn closes the relay, which puts power to the nichrome coil which ignites the package. ssh in and run the script for fireworks.

    2. stolen device tracking - using a standard laptop (not ultraportable - they don't tend to be user-serviceable) make as much room as possible - removing the harddrive and mounting an MSATA ssd should do it. you should be able to mount a raspi (or other board - you could probably do it with an arduino, dunno if any of them have wireless capability) in there along with a wlan module or, if possible, a datacard. hook the power directly to the USB pins on the motherboard. write a script on the raspi to scan for wireless networks and phone home on boot. if you want to save power, you could set your operating system to disable the USB port you've internally attached the pi to on boot.

    assuming they don't take the laptop apart, it should be able to phone home with location data even if they nuke the harddrive or boot to a USB stick or whatever.
  2. #2
    Sophie Pedophile Tech Support
    Two questions. One, does nichrome burn hot enough to ignite thermite? Two, do relays come in 3v? You could just say fuck it to the relay and use a transistor i'd imagine. Also: Self destructing chips: http://www.livescience.com/52397-self-destructing-chip-secures-data.html

    Yay future.
  3. #3
    Hewfil1 Houston
    Two questions. One, does nichrome burn hot enough to ignite thermite? Two, do relays come in 3v? You could just say fuck it to the relay and use a transistor i'd imagine. Also: Self destructing chips: http://www.livescience.com/52397-self-destructing-chip-secures-data.html

    Yay future.


    You'd need magnesium to ignite thermite.
  4. #4
    Hewfil1 Houston
    I enjoy this thread considering I've actually been thinking these measures through or quite some time, just never tried them out.
  5. #5
    -SpectraL coward [the spuriously bluish-lilac bushman]
    Unleash an indestructible computer virus on the drive which prevents access to it.
  6. #6
    Hewfil1 Houston
    Unleash an indestructible computer virus on the drive which prevents access to it.


    So you basically may as well melt it down..... Less effort.
  7. #7
    -SpectraL coward [the spuriously bluish-lilac bushman]
    So you basically may as well melt it down….. Less effort.

    Not really. There are entire websites devoted entirely to the discussion of viruses and which also offer PoC viruses for download. All you'd have to do is download one that can rewrite or delete the data on RING0/Bios on the drive and nobody is getting anything from that drive. It is next to impossible to reprogram a hard drive. Cops walk in, you simply click on the virus and it does the rest.
  8. #8
    -SpectraL coward [the spuriously bluish-lilac bushman]
    http://www.techrepublic.com/article/cyberattackers-can-reprogram-hard-drive-firmware-according-to-kaspersky-bulletin/
  9. #9
    -SpectraL coward [the spuriously bluish-lilac bushman]
    http://www.recover.co.il/SA-cover/SA-cover.pdf


    "Sanitize the drive by dd-ing /dev/zero onto the “entire” drive (the block device of the relevant hard-drive). Our understanding is that a complete, successful single pass of nulls (or any other byte) would suffice for the data to be rendered unrecoverable."
  10. #10
    AngryOnion Big Wig [the nightly self-effacing broadsheet]
    http://www.techrepublic.com/article/cyberattackers-can-reprogram-hard-drive-firmware-according-to-kaspersky-bulletin/

    This is for a firmware virus,The main board in a hard drive can be swapped out.
    The platters can still be read with a new board.
    If you want to be totally sure your info is gone get one these.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOO5ZVm2EN0
  11. #11
    aldra JIDF Controlled Opposition

    You'd need magnesium to ignite thermite.

    you're right, I wasn't totally sober writing this up and it was 4am.

    Two, do relays come in 3v?

    yup. solid state/*signal, units are relatively expensive though.

    http://au.rs-online.com/web/p/latching-relays/6839611/ can handle 30W which is way more than we need, and chances are it can take a lot higher considering we are going to fire it once and not give a fuck about future reliability.

    http://www.livescience.com/52397-sel...ures-data.html


    that's cool, I assume it's a type of glass that expands/contracts to a high degree when exposed to heat/cold...



    All you'd have to do is download one that can rewrite or delete the data on RING0

    stopped reading right there
  12. #12
    -SpectraL coward [the spuriously bluish-lilac bushman]
    …stopped reading right there
    C'mon now. Do you mean to tell me you're not even going to take a nibble at it?
  13. #13
    SBTlauien African Astronaut
    I would like to convert this little motion sensor alarm that I have, into a a motion sensor that starts a camera recording that is in my living room, and if a specific code isn't typed into a little keypad(probably ones that's connected to a RasPi that runs all of this) within 30 seconds, then it'll send an alert to an app on my phone along with the video streamed. That way if someone enters my residence, I'll be able to watch them.

    Maybe a little speaker so that I can talk to them, letting them know what they are wearing to prove that I am watching them, and of course threats of violence and letting them know that I'm a couple minutes away.
  14. #14
    SBTlauien African Astronaut
    This is for a firmware virus,The main board in a hard drive can be swapped out.
    The platters can still be read with a new board.
    If you want to be totally sure your info is gone get one these.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOO5ZVm2EN0

    You could also put a small little firecracker within the hard drive that is switched on when you leave your residence and only switched off when your using it. If the hard drive isn't opened before investigators switch it on, then it'll blow, destroying valuable evidence and landing you new charges.
  15. #15
    aldra JIDF Controlled Opposition
    You could also put a small little firecracker within the hard drive that is switched on when you leave your residence and only switched off when your using it. If the hard drive isn't opened before investigators switch it on, then it'll blow, destroying valuable evidence and landing you new charges.

    probably don't want to go opening your hard drive unless you have a 100% dust-free environment or don't mind prematurely destroying your data
Jump to Top