This is where I think NFC may finally be useful. If cops show up, I slide my phone by a hidden NFC tag, and an http request is sent to my desktop machine. Everything incriminating is wiped and the computer is turned off, before the cops can walk to the room.
Unless you have tied the NFC to an arc wielding torch how would proper data disposal process runs its course fast enough? You live in a manor with very long hallways?
Most of really nasty data is text or a few questionable apps, and should take very little time. Video and audio present a problem, but I think they can be speedily wiped by nuking the metadata parts, making recovery and identification difficult. Not sure how resilient modern formats are to data loss, but afaik e.g. AVI is quite reliant on the description of the stream (which iirc is inconveniently placed at the end of the file).
Nha my dude you’re lying to yourself if you think that it is nearly enough to survive the level of forensics that will happen in case of a motivated investigation.
You need the whole multipass erasure and overwriting or you’re toast. It takes hours…
First of all, it doesn’t take hours to overwrite several text files and a few binaries. Second of all, I think I know better what my local cops would do. It’s not NSA or Interpol. Lastly, this hypothetical obviously excludes stuff after which ‘motivated investigation’ might come. That kind of data lives in encrypted files tucked in odd places, and even that can probably be wiped from the directory entry like it was never there.
Erh well, it takes hours with proper tooling with which I have first hand experience… and just as much experience with various police forces… admittedly my knowledge is limited to Europe and LA on that topic.
For reference I saw them deploy very serious means for stuff from csam to piracy so be careful on how you perceive their willing to be major annoyances.
But hey, this is my work experience I offer, you don’t take it it’s not an issue; I’m not invoicing my time anyway :)
Around here, cops are nasty but not very brainy, hi-tek, or invested. They will be annoying in more brute ways. The goal is just to not give them too much material to go off, so they find someone else who’s easier to pester.
They have a battery attached to flat wires. When you give a couple millimeters of room from the plug, they insert the flat wires and the computer will be powered from the battery.
If the computer is logged in, they have a USB device that mimics a mouse. It makes the mouse pointer move back and forth to prevent it from going to sleep or the screen saver.
They use forensic tools to clone the RAM before moving it. Probably depends on exploits so whether it will work may depend on your OS, but they have access to the hardware so there are a lot of possibilities.
For password guessing they make clones of the computer so they can make countless instances of it to endlessly guess the password at the speed of dickheads to get around the systems cutting the guesser off after a number of attempts.
Careful. There are levels to it, and from stories that I heard, those levels don’t always communicate with each other. If you get the regular “normal cops”, then no, they won’t know anything more than the average joe about computers.
If get in deep enough shit, you might get a visit from the specialised cops, either the state or federal variety, and those guys know what they are doing.
That’s definitely the case in the Netherlands. I wouldn’t trust the average cop to find the power button. But that doesn’t mean the specialized teams don’t have some really good ones.
If it’s proven that you did it, you are getting locked up anyway.
In 99% it is better to not say anything or indict yourself
Edit: ah, misunderstood you, with “did that” you mean turn off the computer, not whatever crime you are accused of. I’d still disagree, but only based on anecdotes, go ask a lawyer, I guess
And here’s where we introduce you to this magical term called full disk encryption!
And if you use BitLocker, do NOT backup your recovery key to the cloud!
https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-reportedly-turned-over-bitlocker-encryption-keys-to-the-fbi-2000713550
Print out out, give it to a friend, don’t mention it via electronic means (email, text, Snapchat, YouTube, and so on…)
I think I’ve heard if you have a Microsoft account it automatically gets backed up
And if you use BitLocker, don’t!
Even better is to memorize it.
Hide it in a poem in a leather bound book at the end of a trap-filled dungeon.
I’ll hide it at the end of my mix tape.
Ill be honest, this is clearly the best idea out there for passwords safety
Now when you say a trap-filled dungeon. What exactly do you mean?
This person should also turn off their computer and remove the RAM so it’s zeroed out if it gets siezed.
This is where I think NFC may finally be useful. If cops show up, I slide my phone by a hidden NFC tag, and an http request is sent to my desktop machine. Everything incriminating is wiped and the computer is turned off, before the cops can walk to the room.
Unless you have tied the NFC to an arc wielding torch how would proper data disposal process runs its course fast enough? You live in a manor with very long hallways?
Most of really nasty data is text or a few questionable apps, and should take very little time. Video and audio present a problem, but I think they can be speedily wiped by nuking the metadata parts, making recovery and identification difficult. Not sure how resilient modern formats are to data loss, but afaik e.g. AVI is quite reliant on the description of the stream (which iirc is inconveniently placed at the end of the file).
Nha my dude you’re lying to yourself if you think that it is nearly enough to survive the level of forensics that will happen in case of a motivated investigation. You need the whole multipass erasure and overwriting or you’re toast. It takes hours…
First of all, it doesn’t take hours to overwrite several text files and a few binaries. Second of all, I think I know better what my local cops would do. It’s not NSA or Interpol. Lastly, this hypothetical obviously excludes stuff after which ‘motivated investigation’ might come. That kind of data lives in encrypted files tucked in odd places, and even that can probably be wiped from the directory entry like it was never there.
Erh well, it takes hours with proper tooling with which I have first hand experience… and just as much experience with various police forces… admittedly my knowledge is limited to Europe and LA on that topic.
For reference I saw them deploy very serious means for stuff from csam to piracy so be careful on how you perceive their willing to be major annoyances.
But hey, this is my work experience I offer, you don’t take it it’s not an issue; I’m not invoicing my time anyway :)
Around here, cops are nasty but not very brainy, hi-tek, or invested. They will be annoying in more brute ways. The goal is just to not give them too much material to go off, so they find someone else who’s easier to pester.
lmfao you’re going to need a more robust destruction plan
You seem to be confused about which side in my scenario is the cops.
Full disk encryption doesn’t help much if the pc is running anyway since the key will be in memory
How will they carry the running pc if it’s not a laptop?
They have a battery attached to flat wires. When you give a couple millimeters of room from the plug, they insert the flat wires and the computer will be powered from the battery.
HotPlug Field Kit
If the computer is logged in, they have a USB device that mimics a mouse. It makes the mouse pointer move back and forth to prevent it from going to sleep or the screen saver.
They use forensic tools to clone the RAM before moving it. Probably depends on exploits so whether it will work may depend on your OS, but they have access to the hardware so there are a lot of possibilities.
Is this actually practically achievable or mostly theoretical in a lab? Is it confirmed that the cops have actually managed to do this?
For password guessing they make clones of the computer so they can make countless instances of it to endlessly guess the password at the speed of dickheads to get around the systems cutting the guesser off after a number of attempts.
You can do this for servers. Desktops would be no problem
At least in Germany, I would be surprised if the cops could point to the RAM inside a computer. They will not open it before they take it with them.
Careful. There are levels to it, and from stories that I heard, those levels don’t always communicate with each other. If you get the regular “normal cops”, then no, they won’t know anything more than the average joe about computers.
If get in deep enough shit, you might get a visit from the specialised cops, either the state or federal variety, and those guys know what they are doing.
That’s definitely the case in the Netherlands. I wouldn’t trust the average cop to find the power button. But that doesn’t mean the specialized teams don’t have some really good ones.
If it can be proven you did that, that’s gonna look real bad in court.
If it’s proven that you did it, you are getting locked up anyway.
In 99% it is better to not say anything or indict yourself
Edit: ah, misunderstood you, with “did that” you mean turn off the computer, not whatever crime you are accused of. I’d still disagree, but only based on anecdotes, go ask a lawyer, I guess
You can get in legal trouble for turning off your PC?
There’s no law against googling how to dispose of a body, but if you do, and you’re a suspect in a murder, it’s a real bad look for you.
Same story here. Probably legal, but definitely not a good look.
Turning off your PC makes you look bad? What the fuck.