After reading about the “suicide” of yet another whistleblower, it got me thinking.
When working at large enough company, it’s entirely possible that at some point you will get across some information the company does not want to be made public, but your ethics mandate you blow the whistle. So, I was wondering if I were in that position how I would approach creating a dead man’s switch in order to protect myself.
From wikipedia:
A dead man’s switch is a switch that is designed to be activated or deactivated if the human operator becomes incapacitated, such as through death, loss of consciousness, or being bodily removed from control. Originally applied to switches on a vehicle or machine, it has since come to be used to describe other intangible uses, as in computer software.
In this context, a dead man’s switch would trigger the release of information. Some additional requirements could include:
- No single point of failure. (aka a usb can be stolen, your family can be killed, etc)
- Make the existence of the switch public. (aka make sure people know of your mutually assured destruction)
- Secrets should be safe until you die, disappear, or otherwise choose to make them public.
Anyway, how would you go about it?
The hardest part would be how to trigger the kill-switch periodically without showing it to your adversary whilst keeping it easy. Having your device queried directly would be a dead giveaway. My idea without involving people would be as follows:
- Set up a program that syncs files to a remote third-party cloud
- Sync it to a directory that frequently changes when you use your device (your docs, for example)
- Have a server that queries the third-party drive for that synchronised directory
- If there are no changes, trigget the alarm
But since this plan relies on the secrecy, it’s kind of ruined now. That, and I think your threat model is a bit too extreme.
Encrypt secret. Post it publicly. Configure a web server to email the private key to any number of addresses if you don’t log in every week.
going to have to be careful with the timing, though. A week can easily be reached if you are ever in an (actual) accident.
Also, note that having a publicly known dead mans switch can be exploited and cause the opposite of what you want: Imagine a competitor (be it idustrial or nation state) wants the secret to leak. Why not speed it up?
The thought of e.g. some foreign adversary having you KILLED just so your secret leaks… that’s wild.
Host the server on Tor. Have a second secret server on Tor that passively monitors the health of the first and distributes the key if it is taken down. Have a one-time pad of passwords memorised, not written down or taken from a book.
That’s an optimization for just having the automated email send the secret directly.
depending on the size of the secret, it helps to have people download it ahead of time.
Also, it acts as a time stamp proving that you knew the secret at a certain time if that’s useful.
Ciphers get broken. What you save out there now can be pulled down and then saved until it can be cracked 10 years from now.
Well, you’d need to send a message to some people that you know would care, when you die or are kidnapped.
There are plenty of services for sending any sort of message.
You’ll send the data with a private key and hand out the paired public key before you die. That way any tampering with the data will be obvious to the receiver.
I’d just send a link to the data. For example store the data on Proton drive with a share link.
Now you’d need to detect that you’re dead or kidnapped. You could have a timer of say a week or a month, and whenever an email or message is received it resets it. You could also send a warning message to yourself before it goes off, so you have a chance to deal with errors such as an email not arriving.
You’d need a 2nd service to check if the main service is running. Or perhaps it just replies once you send it a message once a day or week or month.
You’d also have to make sure that your reset message to the service is secured. Most likely it will be as long as it isn’t absolutely obvious, like you japping on about it at work. But one idea would be to use a proton mail address and keep a pin lock on the app. If you want to go the extra mile the email should also contain something only you can know.
Quite frankly I don’t think they’d even expect you to have any such system set up and they wouldn’t hack you before you’re dead. But maybe I’m wrong. If you really suspect that you’d need someone who is specialized in infosec.
I’d say go look for an existing service that can do this entirely via email, I’d bet it exists already. Otherwise you need to be able to code a bit or find a coder.
I’d say go look for an existing service that can do this entirely via email, I’d bet it exists already.
I think any official service that offers this could be immediately captured or bribed to suppress signalling by a larger more powerful entity, since it would be an easy goto that they could trap for.
I reckon implementing it as chaotically and as distributed as possible, might be the only viable solution, albeit with multiple fault entry points.
The fuck kind of information you sitting on there!?
He knows the real identity of the Hamburgler
The McDonald’s CEO? He’s a criminal after all
Nothing atm, but you never know what you may find. I would assume that most whistleblowers didn’t know they joined a shady organisation until years down the line…
The real answer: hire a law firm, entrust them with your documents, write into your will what you want to happen with them, and then go on about your business.
The question assumes that you family could be killed. Why the law firm is protected against such violence in that case?
A dead man’s switch doesn’t quite protect you from garden hose cryptanalysis though. Nothing stops them from asking you to tell them if he got a dead man’s switch.
This is only partially true in the situation the poster named. What if your secrets are from the government or governmental organization? What if you live under a repressive regime where the law firms are either corrupt or that the law is not in your favor?
That being said, I have a will and a bank safe deposit box. It is filed with the state that I have a will and the will is (also) in the safe deposit box along with stuff that I’d prefer not be released until my death. There’s also a clause in the will that says something to the effect that if somebody sues to invalidate the will, they are automatically excluded from any benefit (or responsibilities). Also, if an individual is found to be somehow responsible or had an intentional involvement in my death, then they are also excluded.
It’s not air tight, but works for my needs. By the way, I don’t have any company or government secrets, it’s just normal family drama, so please don’t kill me.
Maybe, add a clause what should happen if you disappear for more than x days. For most jurisdictions you are considered dead if you disappear for a few years.
Only correct answer here.
Give the encrypted file to one person, the key to another and do not keep either yourself. They exchange them if you die.
Why not keep a copy?
Also, both people are single point of failures. Maybe, 5-6 people where each has an encrypted payload and the keys to decrypt everyone else’s payload.
IIRC Julian Assange had something like that set up. There used to be a file you could download from WikiLeaks that was encrypted and supposedly contained something very spicy, and if anything happened to him the password would be released somehow.
No idea if that’s still a thing or not though.
There are very few situations where a dead man’s switch would have helped these whistleblowers.
Once they have gone public and are at risk of being “suicided” they should have already released everything they knew. Sitting on it after already going public in any way only helps if the goal is to blackmail or extort the company, rather than to expose the company or protect others.
A lot of people have latched onto the idea of a dead man’s switch (and I get it, technical solutions are fun to create), but the only part of the scenario it would help is before the whistleblower goes public, while they are still gathering information and haven’t yet been discovered by the company. Even then, it wouldn’t protect them from being killed, it would only ensure that the partial work is released in case they were discovered and prevented from finishing it.
A “live-man’s switch” might be a better idea. If you’re in such a high profile situation and you’re scared enough that you think you need a dead man’s switch, make frequent unprompted public declarations that you’re healthy and not suicidal, and that should anything happen to you, you blame the company.
Didn’t help McAfee
Btw, that sounds a lot like warrant canaries, where you say that no subpoena orders were recieved as of the date xxxx and if it doesn’t get updated it means that a subpoena was recieved.
Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary
An example of a canary from the web mail service cock.li: https://cock.li/canary.asc.txt
Interesting!
make frequent unprompted public declarations that you’re healthy and not suicidal
I’ve worried that this could be abused
The most non-intrusive foolproof method I can think of is spite-induced action:
- Get a pacemaker with Zigbee mesh network connectivity
- Implant a small device into your wrist that vibrates if your pacemaker is ever disconnected from the network (in which case, run NOW to your nearest safehouse)
- Should the vibration continue for longer than 5 minutes, a vial of cyanide from a hollow tooth explodes into your mouth allowing you to spit it at your nearest enemy (should one be around)
- The bursting of the hollow tooth sends a signal to a remote server, which triggers the
ejectcommand on a server, causing the CD tray to come out. - A confused sysadmin will bitterly get off his chair, and go inspect the server, whereupon he will see the paper instructions embedded in the CD tray, and read them.
- Assuming his latvian is good, and that he’s familiar with caesar cyphers, he will decode the message that will lead him to a youtube URL where he will post the following comment “Jose I slept with your mother.”
- One of the subscribers to the youtube channel is your friend Jose, who will read the comment, spit out his coffee, and then immediately call you.
- After about a week of no response, he uploads the contents of that USB stick you gave him with the instructions to “never upload this ever under any circumstance” out of sheer spite.
I love it!
LEMMY GOLD ahahahaha
Wallfacer Diaz?..
Eh?
Oh, just a silly reference to the sifi series “Rememberance of Earth’s Past” by Lui CiXin. A character, Manuel Rey Diaz, makes a convoluted dead man’s switch device in order to attempt to defend against an impending alien invasion. Incredible series, highly recommend 😁
Oh! Ive read that trilogy, I love that standoff he has when it looks like he’s about to kill himself. Didn’t make the connection
This reads like a modern day SysAdmin Rube Goldberg machine; I love it
Woa, I was reading this as the Edit federated in and it refreshed. Trippy.
If you really have secrets, you shouldn’t have a dead man’s switch.
You should have released it all on day one.
“What makes them keep you alive then?”
It’s not like corporations are going to get punished for killing you regardless.
Another thing to consider is that you won’t know immediately that the information you stumbles upon is incriminating. Sometimes it may take years until you have all the pieces of the puzzle.
Fwiw I’ve actually thought about a dead man’s switch for a while now. When my partner and I were going through end-of-life stuff, having the ability to delete or open things as needed after you’re dead can be important.
I have a rough design in my head where you register various monitors (e.g. checking email, logging into Lemmy, etc) and so long as you reach a specified threshold you’re considered alive.
Build in a duress code or dead code that can be entered by your next of kin, then you got something workable.
For a dead drop like you described in your OP, I agree that instructions to an attorney is probably your best bet. But in the scenario you’re describing, it sounds like having this code won’t be valuable.
The problem with releasing them on day one is that you then can’t gather more. If you’ve only just exposed the edges of the malfeasance you need time to get the rest before exposing it. Go too early and the rest of the evidence can be destroyed, covered up or those holding it coearsed into silence.
Having a dead man’s switch is a way to ensure whatever you’ve gathered gets released if you’re no longer in a position to gather more. As such I disagree with the poster about making it public knowledge before release. Keep it secret until you have everything, then release it.
Nice try Boeing.
My lips are sealed
Set up several solar powered raspberry pies with cheap iot SIM cards, each will check a vm in the cloud or at home for a key. If the key isn’t present or can’t be reached they release the info. Could have several servers to store keys to check. Everyday you enter a code to prevent the key from being removed.
You would need to account for temporary connection issues to make sure it doesn’t send it after a network outage or something.
One issue from a legal/prosecutorial point of view (even assuming there is a willingness for the government to prosecute) is that the rules of evidence require authentication of documents. In the case of a whistleblower, they are themselves a witness and can authenticate (that is, attest to the genuine nature of) any supporting documents they bring in. If a whistleblower is killed, even if the government has the documents the whistleblower intended to authenticate, it becomes a lot trickier to use.
It doesn’t make any sense. If you are a whistleblower is because you already published the information. They are not killing you so the information does not get revealed. They are killing because you already did.
you just need more information and then you need to prove that you have more information so they can kill you anyways
Just a scheduled email that you need to cancel every 24 hours.
That more like coalmine canary than dead man switch. Also, if you happen to be arrested on a weekend or get tangled/hooked up then you will have no way of cancelling it. Then all hell breaks loose.
I don’t know what’s скороварка on English, I guess it’s an easy rice cooking and heating device that can be set on timer. Buy one, then disassemble it and see where heating elements of that thing are. Tape them on you hard drives, better if they are SSDs, set the timer, put it into a wall socket and leave. If you are of adventurous kind, do the same with microwave’s transmitter, pointing it out of the box, but be cautious as fuck because this shit can cook your balls or head in seconds.
or, better yet
You know that most MBs have special contacts for power\reset buttons? You can do two circles to them, one is for you to power up the system normally from some secret button and one from a normal button is to trigger some funsies with things easily triggered by current or heat, like dry gunpowder. So when some ABC agent would try to power up your machine, some funny thing occurs.
and if you are worried about it being disassembled in their lab, print big stickers that stick components to their slots, like OEM fuckers do, and then put cheap razorblades under them near the edge of said stickers. That’s a lifehack nazis and then punks used to deny their posters from getting easily ripped off.
