I have been stalking maidsafe for the past 2-3 years, and I know several people that are just as hardcore or even more than I am.
Would it be great to have some kind of custom made item just for early adopters that can’t be replicated later in the future. There is a company that makes custom shape USB designs like this one which is very cool.
We just need to be careful here, lot’s of bad usb hacks going around. I have a usb device that looks like a drive but instead can also run program in background to snoop user data for instance. So these are cool, but security wise they could be seen as us promoting usb, we wont plug in usb devices given to us for instance, just in case.
This is why using a USB is an extremely bad idea. It is not just about rubberducky type of hacks, or being careful about autorun.inf. The USB protocol itself can be manipulated to do some really dark magic, even normal USB sticks (the ones you might have in your pocket right now) can get the firmware infected and turn any USB flashdrive into a rubberducky or even turning your USB flashdrive into a network adapter and sniffing your connections or even redirecting your traffic to do an MITM attack. So it is not about being careful about whose USB you allow to use in your computer, but about being paranoid about your OWN USB getting the firmware infected and spying yourself.
Yes, this is also a concern. Considering ways to protect folks as it would be a classic scam for them to be sent incorrect usb sticks. So we do need a mechanism to ensure they are genuine/safe for any investors there.The intention is similar to OP with a “I was involved” type approach though. I am sure we will make it Ok, I am possibly being too cautious, I am not sure yet
Well as long as DFU is disabled and the firmware is signed, it shouldn’t be a problem.
Yubico made a specific article about that:
And one of the competitors made another one PRing their own product (which seems to have even thought about mitigating parcel interception from governments):
The old trick was to get the telephone magneto from old phones (century or so ago) and connect it to the electronic device and zap it with 100+Volts AC
I got one of those “Safe” network T-shirts someone on the forum was giving away years ago. The one with the ants on the front & the tag cloud on the back.
