Re: [Tails-dev] Block/unblock wireless devices?

On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 10:42:51PM +0200, intrigeri wrote:
> at boot time, Liberté Linux now explicitly unblocks Wi-Fi, WWAN and
> WiMAX, and soft-blocks all other kind of wireless devices (Bluetooth,
> UWB, GPS, FM). This is implemented using rfkill.
>
> This may prevent some unwanted leaks through the wireless devices that
> are unlikely to be useful in the context of Tails, and at the same
> time, improve the user experience with wireless devices that come up
> in blocked state after boot.
>
> I think we should do this in Tails, and write a short documentation
> page about how to manually unblock a blocked (e.g. GPS) device when
> needed (e.g. sudo rfkill unblock gps).
>
> Thoughts?

Bluetooth can be problematic. Some systems use Bluetooth to communicate
with their keyboards and mouses.

AFAIU, that is one of the reason why most Bluetooth enabled systems will
always powerup the radio during first stage of the boot process, so one
with a Bluetooth keyboard can reach firmware settings.

I was thinking something like "yeah, we could have a checkbox in the
greeter", but many laptops have an hardware kill switch these days.

In any cases, blocking GPS by default sounds like a good plan.

--
Ague