Purism Planning For Three Hardware Kill Switches With The Librem 5

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Purism Planning For Three Hardware Kill Switches With The Librem 5

Purism has today shared some details on their planned hardware kill switches for the upcoming Librem 5 Linux smartphone...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Purism-Librem-5-Kill-Switches

[paupav]

A little bit of a overkill, don't you think?

[tildearrow]

A little bit of a overkill, don't you think?

I don't think so.

[Brisse]

A little bit of a overkill, don't you think?

They are really taking it to the extreme, but I'm glad someone is doing it

[Anty]

Tin foil hat included?

[johanb]

I think the Librem 5 has more important things to solve currently than adding this Lockdown mode, but it's a good and welcome idea.

[skeevy420]

A little bit of a overkill, don't you think?

Not really. I intentionally cripple BT on my phones. I don't use BT anything so it is nothing but a gaping security hole...especially so since they've found BT phone hacking devices at gas stations where I live and fake, but real looking and acting, WiFi networks in hospitals and stores used for MITM attacks.

[L_A_G]

I can understand why they'd want kill switches for the camera, microphone and various network hardware, but the proximity, ambient light and IMU* sensors? Because that sounds almost like they're just turning off everything that isn't absolutely necessary to run the device. I say almost because they're still leaving the USB port and memory card reader active if I understood correctly (both of them, particularly the USB port, being potential attack vectors).

*Basically a combination gyroscope and accelerometer

[skeevy420]

I can understand why they'd want kill switches for the camera, microphone and various network hardware, but the proximity, ambient light and IMU* sensors? Because that sounds almost like they're just turning off everything that isn't absolutely necessary to run the device. I say almost because they're still leaving the USB port and memory card reader active if I understood correctly (both of them, particularly the USB port, being potential attack vectors).

*Basically a combination gyroscope and accelerometer

If someone has physical access, USB and memory card kill switches become a moot point since they're not either wireless or are able to be used to gather information. All the rest that the Lockdown mode triggers have been shown to be potential attack vectors, like using proximity and ambient light data to figure out where a person is pressing the screen to figure out what is being typed, get the unlock pattern, etc.

[CochainComplex]

Tin foil hat included?

I hope they add some ground wire to it. Otherwise it is not really effective.