Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: pearlTOR on April 04, 2012, 01:53 am
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First time posting, but a question I have had for a long time, long before I ever came across this glorious place...
Let's assume worst has come to absolute worst and your front door has just exploded and there is a team of LEO on there way inside clearing room by room.
You can hear there footsteps outside your door and you reach over and grab the high powered magnets next to your computer and rub them furiously against your exposed hard drive.
Is there any way that the hard drive could be searched, or did you just save your ass?
I ask this because I have seen a few threads about putting a HD in water, or smashing, or burning; and the verdict of each is the same. They will pick apart your HD like an onion (pun semi-intended) and get what they need.
TL;DR: can you clean your hard drive completely with a magnet??
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If you want to waste a hard drive quickly, thermite is the best option. Magnets won't really help much.
However, a better option is to use a USB bootable OS, one that doesn't access the computer's HDD at all. If you contain everything on a microSD card, this can be destroyed or concealed much more easily than a HDD.
I hear that microwave ovens will make short work of an SD card. ;)
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+1
Thermite is the answer to most of life's problems!
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When life gives you lemons.
Cover the lemons in termite and incinerate those mother fuckers.
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When life gives you lemons.
Cover the lemons in termite and incinerate those mother fuckers.
I have LOL inside in my brain!!!
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Why does everyone act like thermites just bustin a chill next to the Fruit Loops in the cupboard..?
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If you want to waste a hard drive quickly, thermite is the best option. Magnets won't really help much.
However, a better option is to use a USB bootable OS, one that doesn't access the computer's HDD at all. If you contain everything on a microSD card, this can be destroyed or concealed much more easily than a HDD.
I hear that microwave ovens will make short work of an SD card. ;)
and microwaves lol oh well microwaves are cheap
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Why does everyone act like thermites just bustin a chill next to the Fruit Loops in the cupboard..?
Eh? Where do you keep yours then? I thought it was SOP for anybody involved in shady business to have a liberal stash of the stuff.
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Why does everyone act like thermites just bustin a chill next to the Fruit Loops in the cupboard..?
I keep mine next to my ANFO
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Why does everyone act like thermites just bustin a chill next to the Fruit Loops in the cupboard..?
I keep mine next to my ANFO
But of course!
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I trust strong encryption more than I trust magnets. magnets can hold grudges, encryption doesn't
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Well, if you get shot before you put those rare earths on your disk.. you might have a problem.
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You have to consider how much time you might have before you are face 2 face with the law. I remember reading an article about some hacker (perhaps it was Kevin Mitnick) who suddenly heard the law beating on his door. Now he had his computers set up to self-destruct the hard drive if he pressed a certain key combination ~~ something like Ctrl+F1+Tab, I don't remember the exact key sequence. Anyway, before this hacker could even get to the keyboard the law was right there next to him. Yeah, that fast.
So what I realized from this is that you may have only seconds to act if the law is beating on your door. That's why I use Tails on a USB drive with one partition for Tails and another encrypted partition.
In an emergency, just yank that USB drive straight out of your computer's USB slot. Tails will immediately start to shut down, and in about 15 seconds it will finish up by wiping the memory of your PC. That's pretty much everything you want when it comes to a super fast shutdown.
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If you read the book "Kingpin" about hacker Iceman who was busted by the secret service he had all sorts of dead man switches and other things in effect but it didn't matter because he woke up with a gun in his face, no time to dive for the power plugs to shut everything off. They bled his encryption key from memory and he was screwed
Odds are if you're selling you have to worry about all the drugs in your possession not so much the hard drive.. that's easy to take care of (Live CDs.. encrypted Virtual machines.. ect)
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Just encrypt your HD with TrueCrypt, and use a flash drive-bootable OS for SR business. When not using SR, take the flash drive out.
Magnets or thermite or other fancy shit will lead to charges of tampering with evidence.
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Wouldn't a solution to detonating your self destruct be a voice activated passcode? Say you wake up with a gun in your face, and you just say "I think I left the oven on." And there goes all of your hard drives. 8)
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Wouldn't a solution to detonating your self destruct be a voice activated passcode? Say you wake up with a gun in your face, and you just say "I think I left the oven on." And there goes all of your hard drives. 8)
Oh yeah, this could work well ~~ as long as you don't suddenly realize that you *actually* left the oven on...
But seriously, some sort of stealth way to trigger a hard drive wipe could be useful. Kind of reminds me of the season finale of "Breaking Bad" where the old guy in the nursing home blows himself up by repeatedly ringing the bell attached to his wheelchair. The bell served as a detonator for the bomb taped under his wheelchair.
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If LE has gotten to the point where they are sending a team of trained men with guns to your spot, then they have already done their homework. They will assume that you are using some sort of encryption, and that the only way they'll be able to make their case is by getting to your machine with the key in the RAM. They will plan -everything- around nabbing you before you have time to pull the plug.
Only thing I can think of that -might- have a chance of working in that situation would be a power kill attached somewhere to your leg, out of sight. That way, all you need to do is jerk your leg while throwing your hands up in the air. Something like the Jetski ankle tethers.
OTOH, There's no reason to not have all of your data encrypted in stages- FDE on your Boot Drive, seperate truecrypt volumes disguised as ISOs, each with a different password (or keyfiles) and each holding different pieces of data (like, all your stock vendor text in one tc file, all of your $$ info in another TC file, Inventory in another, etc). That way, there is no 'single point of failure' - even if they crack your FDE by pulling the key from the RAM, as long as the rest of your TC files were not mounted, your data in the TC files remains safely encrypted.
References: Kingpin, Cryptonomicon, Ghost in the Wires, probably the Wire or the Shield (so take w/ a grain of salt :P )
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Wouldn't a solution to detonating your self destruct be a voice activated passcode? Say you wake up with a gun in your face, and you just say "I think I left the oven on." And there goes all of your hard drives. 8)
Oh yeah, this could work well ~~ as long as you don't suddenly realize that you *actually* left the oven on...
But seriously, some sort of stealth way to trigger a hard drive wipe could be useful. Kind of reminds me of the season finale of "Breaking Bad" where the old guy in the nursing home blows himself up by repeatedly ringing the bell attached to his wheelchair. The bell served as a detonator for the bomb taped under his wheelchair.
I was thinking thermite with an electric fuse that had a distance activated sensor of some sort would be possible. Wear it as a disguised necklace, and dont forget to take it off when you leave.
Wake up to gun in face, be escorted out of the room, as soon as your out of the room "Beeeeep" then your drives are all suddenly being melted.
Also, an "Enter passphrase at x time an xx time every day or your drives wipe", might work for some.
It's late, I'm bored. :P
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That's a guaranteed tampering with evidence charge.
Simply encrypt your hard disks properly, and leave you computer OFF when you sleep or go out, or even walk far away from it to go make food or something. Say you forgot the encryption key.
Cops are charging ppl with bullshit evidence tampering charges just for having CCleaner on their drive and wiping away the google spyware they so desperately want at.
I hope you also realize they can just go to your ISP and get everything you searched for unless using https://
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Lol, what ISP?
Also, If I'm waking up to a 9 in my face, I think "Tampering with evidence" would be the least of my worries.
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Some kid I grew up with survived a bust by being completely high out of his tree and assaulting the cops. Because they weren't in uniform and were some kind of undercover street unit judge let him go because anybody walking out of the bathroom and having a gun pointed at you by some random guy would probably freak too. I guess the multiple tazers and beatings he later received was punishment enough
Had to throw out all the seized drugs too because cops apparently didn't give enough "warning" before busting down the door. Didn't even know that was a requirement here, good lawyers are your friend :)