Ask HN: I’m an FCC Commissioner proposing regulation of IoT security updates

Re:Ask HN: I’m an FCC Commissioner proposing regulation of I... by structural on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @07:30PM (#37399249)

Many flash chips have write enable pins at the hardware level. So this support really does still exist in theory!

However, these pins mostly aren't used for any kind of switch in basically every PCB design I've seen. Either it's "always enabled" so the storage can always be written, or it's a chip that's programmed from the factory and always disabled to prevent any kind of user update.

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Re:Ask HN: I’m an FCC Commissioner proposing regulation of I... by WalterBright on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @07:36PM (#37399313)

I'd sure hate to have my system ransomware compromised, and when I try to restore from a backup drive, the ransomware encrypts it, too, as soon as I plug it in.

I also have, on occasion, flipped the from and to parts of the command to restore from a backup. I'd really like to have a hardware switch to make the drive read-only.

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Re:Ask HN: I’m an FCC Commissioner proposing regulation of I... by fragmede on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @08:46PM (#37399917)

They exist, but only as very expensive specialty gear for digital forensic investigators.

https://digitalintelligence.com/store

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Re:Ask HN: I’m an FCC Commissioner proposing regulation of I... by WalterBright on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @10:46PM (#37400796)

> very expensive

Indeed, for a 2 cent switch.

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Re:Ask HN: I’m an FCC Commissioner proposing regulation of I... by structural on Wednesday September 06, 2023 @08:43AM (#37404289)

These also exist for removable drives (not really any different price compared to normal drives, in wide use) in the govt/defense market, where using a hardware write switch when moving data between airgapped systems in a controlled way is common.

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