BusKill can trigger your laptop to lock, shutdown, or self-destruct if it's physically separated from you.
BusKill can trigger your laptop to lock, shutdown, or self-destruct if it's physically separated from you.
Also, it would make sense to include a simple proof-of-intentionality system, like the old Nokia keypad unlock feature to prevent pocket dials. The phone could prompt you to type a displayed 4 digit code before typing your actual PIN attempt, for example.
Do they allow truly offline backup and restore?
iCloud Backups are not "unencrypted backups"
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303
I do wish they would bump the backups to "end-to-end encryption" category though, at least as an option.
I switched away to an Android, so this isn't something I'm taking advantage of personally.
If you've already planned for the possibility of self-destruct, a laptop can be a very transient device. Maybe the only important thing on the laptop is your bitcoin wallet key, but you also have a physical copy stashed in a lockbox somewhere. Maybe you're only using the laptop for its browser, and you've memorized all the passwords you need to enter.
Someone snatching the laptop might be doing so to grab the one keyphrase that you logged in with. The actual device is unimportant to you, then.
As described on the crowdsupply page, the cross-platform GUI app (as opposed to the udev rule for which BusKill was originally designed) currently only has the "lock screen" trigger. In the future, we'll add a "shutdown" trigger.
While we have developed a "LUKS Header Shredder" trigger (what we call "self-destruct" trigger -- as it renders your FDE disk's data permanently inaccessible), we will never ship that directly with the app by default.
There's definitely a use-case for it, but most people probably don't want it. For those that do, we're publishing a guide on how to use the "LUKS Header Shredder" script (tested on Ubuntu and QubesOS) in 2 weeks. For updates, you can subscribe to the website's RSS feed, our website's newsletter (buskill.in), or the crowdsupply.com newsletter.
One thing of note here, don't put LUKS header on any kind of flash (like SSD) or SMR HDD.
Why not?
[0]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Securely_wipe_disk#Flash_me...
If the system is interrupted after data is deleted there is a good chance you can still get it back.
On a normal HDD you still have to wipe the data (ie. physically overwrite it half a dozen times). But this is not possible to execute reliably on SSD or drive-managed SMR HDD.
Reversibility is not a feature of destruction, lexically-speaking. A better description might be "locked".
More importantly in this case: if you are able to reverse it, you can be compelled to reverse it. This is no different than having a secret passphrase.
An interesting way of strengthening such a system is to split the recovery code between multiple people in multiple jurisdictions. Convincing them to hand over their piece of the key could require various levels of proof-of-free-will, ranging from "Hey, I need those numbers on that piece of paper I gave you" (asked on a video call, in a public park) to "I've booked a flight and I'll meet you at the agreed place next Monday at the standard time".
These approaches can be combined with a protocol of "If I use the duress phrase, then give me a fake key and then send a message to the other members of the group / the public / the media that I've been compromised". Of course this sort of system assumes you are part of a wider organisation or at least have friends you can trust to implement all this opsec securely, without adding to your risk profile, but for some people this will be viable.
This script itself was actually an easter-egg in the explainer video at 50 seconds :P
* https://youtu.be/S3LtLyuaBvI?t=46
We're just finishing a very detailed write-up on the "LUKS Header Shredder," and we'll be publishing it in ~2 weeks. You can subscribe to our newsletter on our website (buskill.in) or crowdsupply.com for updates :)