[RandomBK]

I see a lot of discussion in this thread stemming from some confusion+not reading the actual report[0].

Some key points:

1. The Camera+Card was encased in a separate enclosure made of titanium+sapphire, and did not seem to be exposed to extreme pressures.

2. The encryption was done via a variant of LUKS/dm-crypt, with the key stored on the NVRAM of a chip (Edited; not in TrustZone).

3. The recovery was done by transplanting the original chip onto a new working board. No manufacturer backdoors or other hidden mechanisms were used.

4. Interestingly, the camera vendor didn't seem to realize there was any encryption at all.

[0] https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket/Document/docBLOB?ID=18741602&Fi...

[Keeblo]

Unless I misread the article, the key was stored in the NVRAM and not the TrustZone.

IIRC, the article stated that if the key(s) had been stored in the TrustZone then the data would have been irrecoverable.

[RandomBK]

Good catch; it was somewhat ambiguous in the report.

[blablabla123]

> 1. The Camera+Card was encased in a separate enclosure made of titanium+sapphire, and did not seem to be exposed to extreme pressures.

I wonder what the price of the enclosure was then. Feels a bit like click bait...

[spacecadet]

Alot. Just google cameras for deep sea and space. Several companies make these and despite all the covering up, none of the tech is that special.

[rtkwe]

It might have been filled with mineral oil, those external enclosures often setup that way so that the enclosure is less extreme to manufacture. Not sure if that would work for camera lenses though unless those were also filled.

[squigz]

Clickbait? Where? How? It's literally in the NTSB report, and it's not like, a crazy concept?

[nxobject]

If the encryption was that easy to bypass, was it worth it at all?

[phire]

The manufacturer didn’t even know encryption was enabled, because as long as the camera was working, it would just provide all files over USB without any encryption.

It was basically enabled by accident, and the only thing it prevented was recovery of files directly from the SD card when the camera was damaged.

[astrange]

There are some reasons you'd want to encrypt even without a secret key. One is it makes it easier to erase data (just erase the key).

It also makes bit flip errors a lot more obvious, which is another way of saying harder to ignore, so that can go either way.

[anakaine]

Sure. If the card was recovered without the camera motherboard then the decryption key would not have been recovered.

[trenchpilgrim]

Stealing a camera is much harder than stealing an SD card out of a camera.

[Fnoord]

0. They were too cheap to use an industrial grade SD. Mind boggling.

[jychang]

If you read the article, the SD card was placed there by the camera manufacturer and then the device was sealed so it would withstand pressure, and then sold to divers. Blame the camera manufacturer's engineers.

Seems like the SD card of all things performed just fine, so it hardly seems like the weak point.