A prototype of a Russian tablet, built using the Android-derived operating system RoMOS for the Russian Defense Ministry, features the ability to physically disconnect communication modules and sensors on demand.
The "kill communications" button affects GPS, 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth modules, as well as its two cameras, microphone and even the speaker. The tablet can work 1 meter underwater for at least 30 minutes, functions in hot temperatures of up to +55 degrees Celsius, and is shock-resistant. An extra-tough variant fit for the combat zone is available.
Other Russian sites report that a "secure" app store would accept only apps without access rights to personal data.
Is anything similar coming on the western front?
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Russian Tablet Beats Hackers by Physically Disconnecting Modules
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @10:15PM
I bet the Chinese government says the same things about their Red Flag tablets or whatever.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 03 2014, @10:26PM
News recycling dept [soylentnews.org].
NeRD [businessinsider.com.au]: costs $3k, never connects to anything (should we call it water-gap?) and can resist underwater indefinitely only if the users buy a special case [wikipedia.org].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Thursday July 03 2014, @10:53PM
I think you've missed the "on demand" part of TFS/TFA.
Then again, what could possibly go wrong if that function is (made) available remotely.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Thursday July 03 2014, @10:59PM
Oh yeah, and: "In Soviet Russia tablet disconnects you!"
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:23PM
Nice.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 04 2014, @01:13AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by dmc on Friday July 04 2014, @04:20AM
with all due respect cOlo, I think you are IMHO missing the interestingness of this article when you threw the 'news recycling' tag on there. While the US nerd-device may have 'similar' water-resistance features, that is obviously not the interesting thing here.
I have to harp on this one, because this idea of physical interruptting switches for key things like sensors and power, has been one of my holy grails of tinfoil hattedness for over 10 years now. My insanity over the last decade has been driven in no small part, by the absolute absense of physical interrupting switches for, e.g. mic/speaker/power/antennas, on available tech. And beyond the absense of products, the absense of even discussion of the safety features. Personally I look at the $600 blackphone from zimmerman(? of pgp fame), and I don't trust the fscking thing at all due to it's lack of a hard switch for the mic/camera-power/etc. Or rather, I would expect from an honest security company in the post-snowden era, a very strong, very prominent persuasive defense of why such a feature is not worthwhile enough to include, given the various highest priority threat models considered.
I could be wrong, but I believe while watching the PBS Bill Moyer's special (from iran-contra-gate era) 'The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis', there was footage of the famous 'church hearings' where the spooks were dragged before congress, and the methods of tapping into e.g. old landline phone's microphones were revealed. While I'm fairly old, I'm not old enough to be sure, but I think a great deal of care was put into old-school landline phones, such that for instance, there was a very user-inspectable, physical interrupt switch that cut the microphone except when the handset was raised off of the base. I got the impression that this kind of careful security design was direct fallout from the public being technologically educated about such issues during those church hearings. Of course that may all be a misinterpretation of history, but it should get across the core of my own views on the issues.
As can be seen by other comments here, there are people that are still not acutely cogniscent of the difference between the common soft-off switches for wifi and power, and the more useful IMO physical interrupt hard switches for those things. For at least 5 years the first thing I've done with my main laptop has been to crack its case and disconnect the wifi antennas and/or the wifi card, and then use a detachable usb dongle instead. I know that while it is disconnected, it isn't being used by the NSA no matter how much 0wnage of my OS/BIOS/frimwares they have. Because it's so much more difficult, I haven't yet cut the traces/wires of my laptops internal mic, however I feel much more motivated to, and less institutionalizable by doing so, post-snowden.
There are some very simple obvious things that can be done to vastly increase our trust in our computing devices. Easily user attach/cuttable mics/power/transcievers/cameras are one of them. Verifiable and user buildable from source firmwares/bios/os are another. We'll know we are free when corporations and our government admit these things. We are not free today. We are being dumbed down. I genuinely believe money has been spent by corporations and our government to campaign against the credibility of people who try to educate the public about these things. They want (the majority) of us to treat this boxes as magic that we couldn't possibly have the intelligence to understand and responsibly control ourselves. They want to use these channels into our intimate living spaces to have unopposable ultimate control over us. No, most people 'aren't interesting enough to be watched constantly', but they don't have to. They can maintain a society of dumbed down 'consumers' by merely 'ratfscking' those few that might have the motive and ability to educate their neighbors and the public. I clearly see a connection between this conspiracy theory and the other news of the day involving NSA targeting anyone interested in tor or tails.
So cOlo, while I generally like your comments here, on this one I think you were off the mark. The usnavy-nerd-device does not seem sufficiently similar to this device's physical interrupt switches to justify a news-recycling dismissive attitude.
I think this is big news. I think it will be extremely interesting from a sociological/anthropological perspective to watch how this style of feature either makes it to a large number of consumers or doesn't. And if those consumers who do see the value of it are then more closely targeted by NSA. I say socio-anthro because I think we basically live in a police state these days. I think that police state has already irreprably damaged the fabric of an open-democracy. I.e. I don't believe that in the current environment the best products or politicians or policies are winning, because many valuable members of our democracy have already been criminally discredited by the police state.
$0.02... (clearly, now and forever, the physical disconnect switch for the mic on a mobile phone will be one of my 'paranoid/schizo triggers')
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday July 04 2014, @06:14AM
I think it would be prudent to start a page collecting such mods. I'd be willing to devote some of my time for it as well.
There's more than enough room in laptops to add a switch, or two. Bonus points for it being magnetic (i.e. circuit is only closed, when a neodymium magnet sits on a specified spot.)
(Score: 2) by dmc on Monday July 07 2014, @08:34AM
I agree though at this point I'll just ask you to point me at any page in the future. In the near term, much as I hate Google for mostly unrelated reasons, it seems their android-ara thing is looking to implement sensors as modules. Though it remains to be seen what the final form looks like. While I think their project is likely inspired by ideas that have been oppressed until post-snowden, I must admit having seen their sketch I'm now imagining a mobile phone with several modules on a set of rails, perhaps with each module able to be slid either to the left or right, and on the left, the module would be physically inspectably air-gapped, and on the right, connected to the rail/bus. Perhaps the process of answering the phone could involve the sliding of the mic module to the enabled position. Sort of akin to how I described my security understanding of the old-school landline phone. Although simply detachable sensors/coprocessors/battery are still probably better/required as sneaky near-field wireless effects could be used if airgaps were small.
In general I think a lot can probably be done already with 3d printing technology and some relatively minor homebrew hacking. Probably there are examples out there I haven't bothered to look at, because I'd rather soapbox about my paranoia of how absent from mainstream products these features have been.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 04 2014, @09:28AM
(must be the flu symptoms I'm experiencing that caused me to throw too little signs of the intended sarcasms)
So, US Navy has a device that's filled once with books and never changed after, costs $3000 and needs a submarine as a case to stay waterproof.
The only similarity with the Russian device?... well, is sorta used by some army.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by dmc on Monday July 07 2014, @01:58AM
I clearly missed your sarcasm. I did see enough similarity in the general theme of doing simple and obvious things to mitigate large swaths of threat surface that had largely not been discussed/admitted by the government/corps. I.e. in the US nerd device case, admitting the threat model of- so damn many ways to get in if online at all, we're just going to make it a non networked device. And in the Russian case, so damn many ways to get in if online at all, we're just going to make the most important parts air-gappable. In my predominant conspiracy theory, both of these superpower governments had until pre-snowden, been on a footing not to admit those very generalized, very large swaths of threat surface to the citizenry, foreign or domestic. Because they had been very happy as the exploiters of those threat surfaces. Post snowden revealing to the global citizenry that those corporate emperors were effectively wearing no clothes, and not providing remotely secure, or securable products to their consumers, they are now free to act like these simple obvious engineering choices are some sort of amazing 'innovation' that wasn't already obvious for the last 10 years. Excepting pre-snowden for the last 10 years, anyone who spoke up about those things was (perhaps very actively) marginalized as a 'tinfoil hatter'. Because by doing so, it kept the sheep easier to surveil en-masse. Or so my conspiracy theory goes. I so wish as the years went by that theory seemed more crazy instead of less crazy.
I was just exploiting an opportunity to soapbox as always :) Cheers...
(Score: 2) by Theophrastus on Thursday July 03 2014, @10:58PM
followed to the linked article, read the comments, no luck. how is this "physical" disconnection implemented? it's gotta be other than pull away a connector, surely? at least i want a "non-conductive blade" micro-guillotine at least ala "2010"
(Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:22PM
It's in the User Manual under "Hulk smash!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:14PM
Yes, and my laptop has a physical off-switch that disables the Wi-Fi. I gather from this "news" "story" that the concept of an off-switch has fallen so far out of favor with kids these days that no one remembers such a thing ever existed. That's not news, that's rampant idiocy.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:26PM
It has an off switch? That's illegal! - from Max Headroom
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:29PM
Credit fraud is worse than murder. Careful where you walk on sky clearance day.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by KilroySmith on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:32PM
Your laptop has a physical off-switch which is the input to a microprocessor which makes the decision as to when and how to disable the Wi-Fi. Any belief that it's any more than this is unfounded blind faith.
Do you believe that the power on/off button on your laptop is directly connected to the power supply? Do you believe that when you shut your laptop off with that power button, that malware isn't capable of setting a wakeup event that turns your machine back on?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:42PM
Oh noes. Next you say Ctrl-Alt-Delete can be intercepted too.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:45PM
Your laptop has a physical off-switch which is the input to a microprocessor which makes the decision as to when and how to disable the Wi-Fi. Any belief that it's any more than this is unfounded blind faith.
Any EE will tell you that it's trivial to separate the +5V rail that powers those peripherals into another net, and have a mechanical switch on it. You can then use a high side power switch [digikey.com] to apply or remove power from those communication devices. The MCU will be only able to see if there is power; it may be even able to force shutdown; but it will be unable to activate it on its own, without the mechanical switch being in the right position.
I often use power distribution switches for power-saving functionality. You do not want to waste power on components that are not needed in this exact configuration. Some ICs have internal power controls; but if you use MMICs, for example, then you do it yourself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @03:45PM
It's simple....
Shut down PC.
Turn PC off (if needed).
Disconnect the power cord.
If the PC is a laptop, take out the battery module.
How can the PC turn on now?
...However, this level of security is compromised if the PC has a secret backup battery you don't know about.
This can happen if you are a 'person of interest', order a PC/laptop mail order, and the shipment is re-routed
to a third party/parties who secretly modify your PC without your knowledge before having it shipped to you.
http://www.thewire.com/technology/2013/12/nsa-intercepts-laptops-purchased-online-install-malware/356548/ [thewire.com]
If malware got onto your PC before you shut it down,
it will still be there to run when you turn it back on.
The only way around that is to have a second PC that NEVER goes online and is NEVER networked to your primary, internet-aware computer.
Data ALWAYS flows one way from the offline computer to the online computer across the 'air gap' via typing or write-once-read-many (WORM) media like CD-Rs and DV-Rs created on the offline computer and uploded from them onto the online computer. Data ONLY flows back to the
offline computer by retyping it there from the online computer across the 'air gap' between both computers.
Now, the only way you can be 0wned is via TEMPEST. To foil that,
you HAVE to do your computing with an offline, battery-powered laptop
inside a Faraday Cage. For maximum security, the Faraday Cage has to be below
street level in a basement with ABSOLUTELY no line-of-sight to any window.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename) [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage [wikipedia.org]
The world's largest Faraday Cage is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency [wikipedia.org]
A photo link to the above:
http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/201372421726917734_20.jpg [extremetech.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:15PM
How does this compare with laptop wifi switches? I've always assumed that the external physical wifi switch physically disconnects the wifi / bluetooth hardware from the rest of the machine. The messages I get from my OS seem to corroborate this interpretation, as when I throw the switch to 'disabled' the OS thinks the hardware is gone.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:31PM
Hipster faggots don't buy laptops with wifi switches, so wifi switches don't exist.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday July 04 2014, @12:38AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04 2014, @01:06PM
What if he's red-green blind?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday July 04 2014, @06:43PM
Once upon a time I owned a computer whose only access to the internet was via a plug-in modem. And it was slow enough that I could be certain when it was in use. Of course it was dial-up, which made it easier to tell.
But I still couldn't tell that only the data I intended to send was being sent. Just that data was only sent when I wanted to send data. (In principle I could have intercepted the signals on the way out and copied them, and then spot-checked them for "this is what I was sending", but life's too short.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SlimmPickens on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:22PM
Even if this things no good it's a very good idea. It might lead to some nice kickstarters,