maltfield

* https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2023/06/11/lemmy-migration-...

I wrote a guide to help users with their migration to Lemmy

This guide will help new lemmy users find and subscribe-to (remote) lemmy ~~subreddits~~ communities

https://buskill.in/canary-006/

We just published our Warrant Canary for 2023 H2

Warrant Canaries are a means for us to (not) inform you of (not being) breached if served with a State-issued, secret subpoena (gag order)

Prototyping DIY Laptop Kill Cords

How PureBoot and Heads uses the TPM for trusted boot measurements

https://www.buskill.in/canary-005/

Happy 2023! We just published our Warrant Canary for the new year

Warrant Canaries are a means for us to (not) inform you of (not being) breached if served with a State-issued, secret subpoena (gag order)

https://www.buskill.in/bitcoin-black-friday-2022/

The BusKill (open-source hardware laptop kill cord org) announces Bitcoin Black Friday sale (10% off all hardware Dead Man Switches)

Useful to protect your cryptocurrency from theft as the BusKill laptop kill cord will lock, shutdown, or wipe your encryption keys if your laptop is physically taken from you

https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2022/10/20/crowd-supply-rev...

BusKill does not ship with destructive triggers.

The current app is limited to locking your screen. Future releases will include soft/hard shutdown. So, by default, your clumsiness would just mean you have to type your password to unlock your screen. Not a big compromise :)

We do have a "LUKS Header Shredder" trigger (which we call self-destruct as it renders all the data on the FDE disk useless), but we (intentionally) don't include it by default and raise the barrier of entry because of the risk of data loss.

We'll be publishing a more detailed write-up on the LUKS Header Shredder in 2 weeks. You can subscribe for updates on our website (buskill.in) or the campaign directly (crowdsupply.com)

* https://docs.buskill.in/buskill-app/en/stable/hardware_dev/i...

USB-C is easier. There's tons of magnetic breakaway cables to build your own USB-C BusKill. See the documentation:

The reason this campaign is limited to USB-A is because there's no USB-A magnetic breakaway cables on the market.

Please support the campaign to make it available to folks who need USB-A BusKill cables.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duress_code

Lookup "duress passwords"

The feature is more relevant in (full disk) encryption software than OSes.

All orders are handled by CrowdSupply (via Mouser). They handle shipping, VAT, import taxes, etc.

It certainly added cost to the final product, but I figured it was more fair & transparent to everyone to set shipping to $0 internationally (I hate it when you finally make it to payment and only then learn shipping is $20 :/).

Ah, crap, sorry about that.

I'll try to remember to update the verbiage of that lower line to reference the top line to prevent this from happening again in the future.

Thanks for pointing it out!

Hi, Michael Altfield here (Founder of the BusKill project and holder of the PGP Key for signing canaries)

No, you should not be concerned. The latest canary #002 literally says:

  Period: 2021-06-01 to 2021-12-31
  Expiry: 2022-01-31

Source: https://www.buskill.in/canary-002/

What matters is what's cryptographically signed. Did I make a mistake somewhere else?

The next canary will be posted before 2022-01-31.

* https://www.crowdsupply.com/alt-shift/buskill

If all you want is a bluetooth/wifi solution, then there's tons of "solutions" on the market for this. See our "comparison" table on CrowdSupply for some options:

When I designed BusKill, I intentionally avoided wireless solutions.

BusKill is designed for situations where the risk is extremely high, and you'll find that the radio-based solutions aren't very secure. They're faulty and have huge surface areas of attack.

How does that work? Can you use udev to call a script on an acpi event? Is it cross-platform?

Would love to see a write-up with more info on how to do this :)

Yes! That was just under 2 years ago. It's the same project.

DIY is great. The problem is that after I published that article, everyone on Hacker News went and bought-out all the USB-A magnetic breakways on Amazon. And they literally never re-stocked (I found out later it was EOL from the manufacture).

The reason I launched this crowdfunding campaign was to put these USB-A magnetic breakaway cables back on the market so people could build their own again (and to sell the whole kit, to lower the barrier of entry to non-techie journalists).

* https://youtu.be/S3LtLyuaBvI?t=26

We reference treadmills and jetskis in the explainer video to explain the concept of "Kill Cords"

I didn't know snowmobiles had this too! I guess it's my bias since it never snows where I'm from :D

Hi pjerem, Michael Altfield here (founder of the BusKill project).

The problem is that there are no USB-A magnetic breakaways available on Amazon. If there were, then I wouldn't have launched this campaign!

* https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2020/01/02/buskill-laptop-k...

Actually, Amazon did have USB-A magnetic breakaway components before, but they went EOL and sold-out when I first published my DIY article on how to build-your-own-BusKill-cable last year.

The reason I started making my own was a response to all the folks that asked me how they could get a USB-A BusKill cable since they sold-out (and they also were never available in Europe -- now they are!).

Hi, I'm Michael Altfield (Founder of the BusKill project). I'll take that bet because I'm pretty sure <99% of people will ever enable the self-destruct triggers :)

BusKill does not ship with destructive triggers. The current app is limited to locking your screen. Future releases will include soft/hard shutdown.

We'll be publishing a more detailed write-up on the LUKS Header Shredder in 2 weeks. You can subscribe for updates on our website (buskill.in) or the campaign directly (crowdsupply.com)

Also, while I recognize there are limits in PGP, I encourage it and actively train journalists and activists on how to use it (though I do prefer messaging solutions that make e2ee required and use PFS like Signal, Threema, Wire, etc).

Yes :) BusKill is an open-source project. AltShift is my company.

* https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2020/01/02/buskill-laptop-k...

Hi martin_a, I'm Michael Altfield. I started the BusKill project in January 2020 with the following article on my blog:

The above article front-paged on Hacker News, and I got a lot of people asking me how they could buy one and use it in on Windows and MacOS. Over the past year, many people have contributed in porting it to those platforms (I originally just designed it for myself, and I use Linux).

The BusKill project is not owned by me. All our work is open-source, and it's owned by the community. As such, I don't put just my name on it because it's not just my work. But if you dig around, you do see my name pop-up in a few places.

The list of contributors can be found on our documentation's "Attribution" section.

* https://docs.buskill.in/buskill-app/en/stable/attribution.ht...

The main website is mostly just a landing page, blog, and a store so people can buy with cryptocurrencies and Tor since CrowdSupply doesn't run an Onion Service and doesn't accept crypto payments.

Not everyone who has contributed to the BusKill project is still active, but some of us are. You can find our names & photos at the bottom of the Crowd Supply campaign page:

* https://www.crowdsupply.com/alt-shift/buskill

Contact information is provided on the website. There's a link to it in the Footer* and on the GitHub page. Not sure how I can make that more clear:

* https://www.buskill.in/contact/

* https://www.crowdsupply.com/alt-shift/buskill

If all you want is a BT dongle, then there's tons of "solutions" on the market for this. See our "comparison" table on CrowdSupply for some options:

When I designed BusKill, I intentionally avoided wireless solutions.

BusKill is designed for situations where the risk is extremely high, and you'll find that the radio-based solutions aren't very secure. They're faulty and have huge surface areas of attack.

* https://rsf.org/en/ranking

Our target demographic is mostly journalists.

Keep an eye on the number of journalists who are murdered in oppressive regimes. It's very sad :'(

usbkill is a bit backwards from BusKill.

usbkill triggers when a device is inserted. BusKill triggers when a device is removed. It's an important difference.

I actually didn't start BusKill to sell devices. It was originally a DIY project. The problem is that after I published the article describing how to make it, the one manufacturer of USB-A magnetic breakaways EOL'd their product and it sold-out (my & Hacker New's fault). It also wasn't for sale outside the US.

This campaign is a response to people who asked me how they could build their own USB-A cable with a magnetic breakaway. Before they couldn't. Now they can.

* https://docs.buskill.in/buskill-app/en/stable/hardware_dev/i...

Of course, you can still build your own. We encourage it. All our designs are open-source.

In such a scenario, you're right that if the attacker will use physical violence against you, of course the device wouldn't save you from bodily harm.

But what about your sources? In this situation (if you actually can't remember the anonymous email address of your source), it's not your life that's being saved -- it's the identity and the life of the whistleblower.