Securing my Ipod

[Phalse]

Thanks for all your input, and HT i await your response

[nihil]

Hmmmm,

But word will get out that people are putting these "theft notification software" on their Ipod's and it won't be long before the workaround is publicly available on the internet.

Whilst that is very true, a lot of these thefts are opportunist and drugs related, so the thief isn't exactly thinking clearly?

It is similar to automobile theft in a way................professionals won't get caught whilst amateurs will?

I would await HT's contribution, as I know that he will give it his best shot. Please be patient as I know that he is a little busy, having just changed jobs and relocated; and he won't give you something that does not work to his satisfaction and standards

Please remember that ALL security can be circumvented by someone with the skills and the time.

just my thoughts

[thehorse13]

One angle not thoroughly discussed here is the theft capabilities of Ipods and such. They are banned from our facility as well as other areas of the organization.

As many of you know, the Ipod functions the same way as a flash drive. It can quickly and easily interface with hosts and suck up tons of business confidential data.

Now, how many security guards are going to suspect someone listening to an Ipod as a threat to leakage? Zero.

Also, we've been able to do amazing things with Ipod OSes and various other mobile devices like the Trio.

There are plenty of nasty things on the horizon. Also, there are a few nasty things out there already.

My guess is that mobiles will open a new market to the AV vendors very soon. Can you imagine SAV running on your cell phone? Ewwwww.

--Th13

[nonades]

Originally posted here by HTRegz
Hey hey,

What you are describing is indeed possible... Think AutoStart (Like CDs)... My Western Digital USB HDD used to have it (before I wiped it) and it would execute a few stupid things at start-up... my USB Thumb drive came with encryption software that I can set up in the autostart...

In the last issue of 2600 (hey, I gotta show support for local magazines ) there was an article where a guy put a script on his iPod that "backed-up" the hard-drive of computers that the guy plugged his iPod into. I forget what language he used (I wanna say perl though).

I can get the details for someone if they want it though.

This also would go along with what TH13 said as well.

[gothic_type]

without password its junk.. and after so many trys it encrypts the filetable so only the program can decrypt it within a human amount of time. think someone would pay for that?

Yes, I do. I'm fairly certain that most people are more concerned with obtaining the ipod itself than the music/data stored within. All they would have to do would be wipe the ipod and start again.

The idea of doing something like what's been suggested does sound quite interesting though.

ac

[Phalse]

I am not relying on this to be in any sense a main level of security for my Ipod, more so of an added layer of precaution. I keep my Ipod with me almost all the time, but just in case of that 1 time i leave it unattended.

[HTRegz]

Hey Hey,

For those of you that are waiting for this... It's mostly done...

2 files.. executable and config file..

You store the email to, the subject (so you can customize for filters or notifications), the gmail account info in the config file...

The file will send you the computer name, user name, ip address, and home directory... I'm running into problems with the Windows version of python neither Python 2.4 from python.org or Python 2.4 from ActiveState contain EVERYTHING... and I'm basically reusing some old linux code, so now I have to make some minor changes... I think i may hve a busy week ahead of me.. but you'll know when it's done

Peace
HT

[HTRegz]

Hey Hey,

So py2exe has a few problems building executables into single files... so it's a whole directory of files... the directory is attached below.. just edit pyPod.ini and you're good to go... You can autorun it to generate the information and send it back to you

The email looks like this

Your iPod has been stolen, I'm reporting this theft to you Here's some relevant information:
IP Address: 192.168.1.50
Username: tyler
Computer Name: DESKTOP
Home Directory: \Documents and Settings\tyler

Please find me fast!!!

you can make an autorun.inf file on the root of the device.. it would look something like this

[autorun]
shellexecute=dist\pyPod.exe

Now for the bad news. A device can only autorun from an autorun.inf file if the RMB (Removable Media Bit) is not set...

From Microsoft

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device...ge/usbfaq.mspx
Autorun capabilities are restricted to CD-ROM drives and fixed disk drives. If you need to make a USB storage device perform Autorun, the device must not be marked as a removable media device and the device must contain an Autorun.inf file and a startup application.

The removable media device setting is a flag contained within the SCSI Inquiry Data response to the SCSI Inquiry command. Bit 7 of byte 1 (indexed from 0) is the Removable Media Bit (RMB). A RMB set to zero indicates that the device is not a removable media device. A RMB of one indicates that the device is a removable media device. Drivers obtain this information by using the StorageDeviceProperty request.

For more information about the SCSI Inquiry command, see the T10 committee located at http://www.t10.org. This link leaves the Microsoft.com site

For more information about the StorageDeviceProperty, see the STORAGE_DEVICE_DESCRIPTOR storage structure in the Windows DDK, located at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...656e9a.xml.asp.

For more information on Autorun.inf files see the "Creating an AutoRun-Enabled Application" article located at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...asp?frame=true.

So this can never work properly for an iPod.... I have however seen mention that you can get programs to change that bit... maybe one of the hardware guys / C/C++ programmers here have the knowledge required to write a program to change that bit... or maybe someone can dig up information on it... Then again maybe the mention i've seen of it is incorrect.. Anyways. here ya go...

Peace,
HT

So apparently my file was too large (2.5MB) and I didn't get a warning regarding it, so now I'm uploading it to my site... you can download it from http://www.aoaddicts.net/htregz/dist.zip.

[The Duck]

Hmmm... The only Idea's I've heard would be fooling around with the firmware to fool windows in thinking it's not a removable media device. Though this idea was for USB flash drives... So in other words you would need a hacked Ipod for this to work properly, and I have yet to find documentation on hacking an Ipod for this purpose...

[Phalse]

Well Thanks HT i appreciate the effort and at least I can look at what you've done and get a better understanding.