Top all-time · #3770
Michael Altfield
Personal blog · tech.michaelaltfield.netsecurityprogramming
Michael Altfield's personal blog at tech.michaelaltfield.net covers security and programming. Since 2018, 19 different Hacker News readers have linked it 32 times, most often “BusKill: A kill cord for your laptop”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-03-03, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for security hardening posts, such as the BusKill USB kill-switch tool and a hidden-Unicode git guide, plus a Lemmy community guide that one commenter called very helpful.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Technology, Science, and the pursuit of Enlightenment
Most-linked posts?
- BusKill: A kill cord for your laptop4 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2020-01-02
- Guide to Finding Lemmy Communities (Subreddits)3 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2023-06-11
- Trusted Boot (Anti-Evil-Maid, Heads, and PureBoot)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-02-16
- GrapheneOS: Yet another contributor attacked and banned by Daniel Micay3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-08-19
- Nightmare on Lemmy Street (A Fediverse GDPR Horror Story)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-03-04
- Mitigating Poisoned PGP Certificates (CVE-2019-13050)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-07-14
What Hacker News says?
I saw this solved with a USB stick on a keychain and the computer shuts down when the stick is removed. Does anybody still have the link? Ah. Found it: https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2020/01/02/buskill-laptop-k...
Comment linking /2020/01/02/buskill-laptop-kill-cord-dead-man-switch/
on “Usbkill – anti-forensic tool to halt computer when new USB device is connected”Submitted BusKill: A kill cord for your laptop as a story · 331 points
HN discussionHi pjerem, Michael Altfield here (founder of the BusKill project). The problem is that there are no USB-A magnetic breakaways available on Amazon. If there were, then I wouldn't have launched this campaign! * https://buskill.in/buy Actually, Amazon did have USB-A magnetic breakaway components before, but they went EOL and sold-out when I first published my DIY article on how to build-your-own-BusKill-cable last year…
Comment linking /2020/01/02/buskill-laptop-kill-cord-dead-man-switch/
on “BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops”Submitted Android Security Auditing: Investigating Unauthorized Screenshots as a story · 104 points
HN discussionHi martin_a, I'm Michael Altfield. I started the BusKill project in January 2020 with the following article on my blog: * https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2020/01/02/buskill-laptop-k... The above article front-paged on Hacker News, and I got a lot of people asking me how they could buy one and use it in on Windows and MacOS. Over the past year, many people have contributed in porting it to those platforms (I origina…
Comment linking /2020/01/02/buskill-laptop-kill-cord-dead-man-switch/
on “BusKill – A USB kill cord for laptops”Submitted Guide to Finding Lemmy Communities (Subreddits) as a story · 32 points
HN discussionHere's a Github Action / workflow that says it'll do something similar: https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2021/11/22/bidi-unicode-git... I'd say it's good practice to configure github or whatever tool you use to scan for hidden unicode files, ideally they are rendered very visibly in the diff tool.
Comment linking /2021/11/22/bidi-unicode-github-defense/
on “New Vulnerability in GitHub Copilot, Cursor: Hackers Can Weaponize Code Agents”Submitted Nightmare on Lemmy Street (A Fediverse GDPR Horror Story) as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSee BLEUnlock[1] for a simple Bluetooth proximity lock solution for macOS or BusKill[2] for a cross-platform wired solution. [1] https://github.com/ts1/BLEUnlock [2] https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2020/01/02/buskill-laptop-k...
Comment linking /2020/01/02/buskill-laptop-kill-cord-dead-man-switch/
on “Hardening macOS (2018)”Submitted Mitigating Poisoned PGP Certificates (CVE-2019-13050) as a story · 4 points
HN discussionBecause Lemmy is federated, it may be difficult for reddit users migrating to lemmy to find their subreddits. Here's a guide to help reddit users find popular lemmy communities and subscribe to them across different instances * https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2023/06/11/lemmy-migration-...
Comment linking /2023/06/11/lemmy-migration-find-subreddits-communities/
on “Reddit permanently bans account of user advocating Lemmy migration”Submitted I (accidentally) uploaded a photo of my ID to Lemmy, and I couldn't delete it as a story · 3 points
HN discussionBecause Lemmy is federated, it may be difficult for reddit users migrating to lemmy to find their subreddits. Here's a guide to help reddit users find popular lemmy communities and subscribe to them across different instances * https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2023/06/11/lemmy-migration-...
Comment linking /2023/06/11/lemmy-migration-find-subreddits-communities/
on “Reddit permanently bans account of user advocating Lemmy migration”Submitted BusKill: A Kill Cord for Your Laptop as a story · 3 points
HN discussionAccused of "bad faith posting" by a brand-new sockpuppet account created 4 hours ago? People can read for themselves and make up their own mind https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2025/08/19/grapheneos-danie... GrapheneOS is technically strong, but they/Micay/you(?) are absolutely not "neutral" or "objective" - GOS is constantly beefing with other projects rather than collaborating to build a stronger de-googled Androi…
Comment linking /2025/08/19/grapheneos-daniel-micay-banned/
on “Original GrapheneOS responses to WIRED fact checker”Submitted Hardening Guide for PhpList as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThank you for writing the "How to Find Lemmy Communities" guide. It was very helpful. https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2023/06/11/lemmy-migration-...
Comment linking /2023/06/11/lemmy-migration-find-subreddits-communities/
on “Guide to Finding Lemmy Communities (Subreddits)”Submitted How to check if a .onion is alive or dead (with Hidden Service Descriptors) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionLemmy is a great (federated) reddit alternative. If anyone's looking to migrate from reddit to lemmy, this guide may help you find and subscribe-to subreddits across the lemmyverse * https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2023/06/11/lemmy-migration-...
Comment linking /2023/06/11/lemmy-migration-find-subreddits-communities/
on “Apollo will close down on June 30th”Submitted GrapheneOS: Yet another contributor attacked and banned by Daniel Micay as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI'll bite. GrapheneOS has a long history of brigading. They officially encourage it[0] and are now trying to make it a part of their OS[1]. But wait, they are just doing it to The Baddies, right? Setting aside the fact that they frequently claim targeted harassments against them, often with little[2][3] to no[4][5][6][7] evidence (the only heavily cited arguments from them are technical ones), they are using their f…
Comment linking /2025/08/19/grapheneos-daniel-micay-banned/
on “LineageOS Statistics”Submitted Trusted Boot (Anti-Evil-Maid, Heads, and PureBoot) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI wrote a guide to help users with their migration to Lemmy * https://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2023/06/11/lemmy-migration-... This guide will help new lemmy users find and subscribe-to (remote) lemmy ~~subreddits~~ communities
Comment linking /2023/06/11/lemmy-migration-find-subreddits-communities/
on a deleted threadSubmitted Guide for fixing GPG keyring after importing a poisoned certificate as a story · 2 points
HN discussionhttps://tech.michaelaltfield.net/2022/10/20/crowd-supply-rev...
Comment linking /2022/10/20/crowd-supply-review/
on a deleted threadSubmitted Persistent, Sandboxed, Single-Site Browser (Firejail and Proxychains) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted 3TOFU: Supply Chain Security Harm Reduction as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Nightmare on Lemmy Street (A Fediverse GDPR Horror Story) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Trusted Boot (Anti-Evil-Maid, Heads, and PureBoot) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Trusted Boot (Anti-Evil-Maid, Heads, and PureBoot) as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
