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souperk @reddthat.com

How would you implement a dead man's switch?

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:

  1. No single point of failure. (aka a usb can be stolen, your family can be killed, etc)
  2. Make the existence of the switch public. (aka make sure people know of your mutually assured destruction)
  3. Secrets should be safe until you die, disappear, or otherwise choose to make them public.

Anyway, how would you go about it?

95 comments

  • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

    1. An automated SMS message to activate something or something
    2. As Back-up, automated email that is checked if received or not (in cases where no mobile connection but there is internet)
    3. Final Back-up, none of the two maybe, radio that disables the mechanism for 48 hours just incase
95 comments