Or you could just use an encrypted file system…
Press a button and this SSD will self-destruct with all your data
Submitted 2 days ago by along_the_road@beehaw.org to technology@beehaw.org
https://www.theverge.com/news/826338/teamgroup-t-create-expert-p35s-externa-ssd-self-destruct-button
Comments
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
pankuleczkapl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Def not true about the justice system, killing you does not do them any good, they just want good prosecution statistics
huquad@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
What we really need is encryption with a duress password that just shows some harmless files. Maybe have it overwrite the sensitive data if they want to verify size of the drive. Does something like that already exist? I know standard duress password does, but that could go down as destruction of evidence.
AlchemicalAgent@mander.xyz 1 day ago
TrueCrypt had/has that feature for full-drive encryption. But I don’t think anyone serious uses them anymore due to the current code maintainers having some questionable allegiances.
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
You can embed encrypted data inside media files like video, image and audio files. Thats your best bet i think.
Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
So it’s a fidget with a slider AND a button?
heyWhatsay@slrpnk.net 22 hours ago
Oops.
Kissaki@beehaw.org 2 days ago
Help, my cat stepped on the button, how do I recover my data?
wicked_samurai@beehaw.org 2 days ago
CATastropic preesses are prevented? Sounds PURRfect.
irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
Fatal flaw is it has to be connected to a computer to start the process. If someone truly wants the data they could just disassemble the device before it gets connected if the button has been pressed. They should have found a way to do it with a small onboard battery reserved only for that purpose.
theneverfox@pawb.social 1 day ago
I mean, it could just be a capacitor. It’s easier to fry something than make it delete itself
irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone 22 hours ago
Capacitor wouldn’t allow long enough to wipe the data first. It’s a two pass system. Wipe data then destroy. Also capacitors lose charge over time much, much more quickly than a battery. You still would need to have plugged it in very recently. And yes to build enough voltage to destroy electronics physically and quickly with a battery, it would actually probably need both battery and capacitors anyway which would also increase size. I’m guessing it was a tradeoff of size vs functionality, but having it not work until it’s plugged in after pressing the button which is bright red when pressed, seems like a very simple way to bypass the destruction by simply disassembling it before plugging it in. Only good if the thief/agent doesn’t know why there’s a big red spot on it before plugging it in, which is a bad assumption for security especially if you deploy these widely so everyone knows what they are.
halm@leminal.space 2 days ago
I’m not sure I trust myself with that functionality.
Toes@ani.social 2 days ago
My friends kid loves to press the power button on her computer. This looks too tempting. haha
cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
kinda like the recompute base encryption hash button in sales guy vs web dude
sefra1@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Image
So, let’s see if I understand, the device only destroys the data after it’s connected to a computer.
So an adversary can just not connect it to a computer and extract the data through alternative means (like unsoldering the chip and reading it directly.
The device should be able to destroy itself either from an internal battery or some physical or chemical mechanism.
nekusoul@lemmy.nekusoul.de 2 days ago
My assumption is that it probably uses the same mechanism that most other SSDs already have where it always saves the data with internal encryption and simply overwrites the encryption key when a wipe is requested.
This same mechanism already allows SSDs to be formatted quickly while still being secure without having to zero out everything, which would cause a lot of additional wear.
The additional complete wiping would just be the cherry on top.
sleepundertheleaves@infosec.pub 2 days ago
sefra1@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Encryption should always be the last line of defence, encryption that is unbreakable today may be trivially broken tomorrow. Which is why I also I still prefer to overwrite drives with random data instead of just trusting the sanitise command (Even though I know that a big chunk of the data stays unoverwritten as part of the drive’s “provisional area”.
(Which raises another issue that “deleting” a luks keyslot or the whole header doesn’t actually warranty it’s deleted, may have just be moved to the provisional area. So if a key somehow is compromised it becomes nessesary to physically destroy the drive.)
In that case I rather use something that will reboot the computer and shred the ram as it would serve the same purpose with the bonus that contents can’t also be recovered from ram. Something like an usb drive with a string wrapped around the wrist.
Now, in the situation that the keys have leaked somehow, (like recording the keyboard from afar while the user types the passphrase) then the self-erasing hard drive makes a lot more sense, assuming the user has time to trigger the mechanism.
Now the issue is, that overwriting even a fast ssd takes time, so I’m assuming the device works by destroying or erasing a security chip that holds the keys for the main storage, however the data is still there if the adversary cuts the power before overwriting the whole drive. Ofc encrypted, but like I said before, encryption may be broken tomorrow. A physical or chemical solution that grinds or dissolves the chip somehow seems to me a better option, with the bonus that it can be made to work without electricity.
Sidhean@piefed.social 2 days ago
The image you posted seems to disagree with you. There is some sort of “Physical Data Destruction” in phase 2. The article says the switch breaks some chips, but I didn’t get much beyond that. In any case, lets hope the delete-when-plugged-in thing is redundant.