Here’s a puzzler for you: exactly how do you securely send data from one airgapped computer to another? sending it over a network is right out, since that’s the entire point of an airgap. A sneakernet is inherently insecure, as well as you shouldn’t overestimate the security of a station wagon full of tapes. For his Hackaday prize entry, [Nick Sayer] has a possible solution. It’s the Sankara stones from Indiana Jones as well as the temple of Doom, or a USB card visitor that needs two cards. Either way, it’s an fascinating experiment in physical security for data.
The concept behind the Orthrus, a secure raid USB storage gadget for two SD cards, is to pair two SD cards. With both cards, you can checked out as well as compose to this raid drive without restriction. With only one, the data is irretrievable so they are risk-free during transit if shipped separately.
The style for this gadget is based around the ATXMega32A4U. It’s quite much what you would expect from an ATMega, however this has a built-in full speed USB interface as well as hardware AES support. The USB is excellent for providing two SD cards as a single drive, as well as the AES port is utilized to encrypt the data with a key that is kept in a key storage block on each card.
For the meant utilize case, it’s a great design. You can only get the data off of these SD cards if you have both of them. However, [Nick] is well conscious of Schneier’s legislation — anyone can style a cryptosystem that they themselves can’t break. That’s why he’s looking for volunteers to fracture the Orthrus. It’s an fascinating challenge, as well as one we’d like to see broken.
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