No matter who you are, somebody is out there trying to get you. Protect yourself !
- Russian hackers leak Macron and team’s emails short of French presidential election[1]
- French President Emmanuel Macron, Pakistan’s Imran Khan, and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, among targets of the Pegasus spyware [9],[8]
- Pegasus spyware targets hundreds of journalists [9],[8]
- Major national newspapers raided illegally as authorities seek to breach source confidentiality [5],[4]
- GCHQ targets belgacom to spy on the communication of european members of parliament, and NATO workers, among others [0]
- GCHQ and NSA target belgian cryptographer[2]
- Microsoft senior executive’s emails specifically targeted [6]
- In 2023, 2.9 billion dollars in losses following business email compromise targeting executives, in the US alone [3]
- Tabloids, with active collaboration from police sources, spied on thousands of victims [7].
- None of this would have impacted them had they used our laptops ! Protect yourself !
Very secure computers
Our laptops and backup solution protect you from all the most common security defects.
Only the most sophisticated state-level adversaries may get you, and even for them it will be difficult.
We have three lines of increasingly secure laptops, useful for:
- Executives
- Journalists
- Union reps
- Elected officials
- Academics
- Lawyers
- Whistleblowers
- Health professionals
- Celebrities
- Anybody who values their privacy
Vauban
The threat model (i.e. what the laptop protects against) includes but is not limited to:
- Opportunistic theft
- Almost all malware
- Phishing attacks
- Sophisticated remote attackers
- Police & customs seizures
The thread model does not include:
- Treacherous or extremely clueless insiders
- State-level Advanced Persistent Threats
- 0-days
- Hardware compromission
- Side-Channel attacks
- Physical duress
- Vendor (i.e. us !) compromission
But anything short of the above will no longer impact you !
| Feature: | Protects against: |
|---|---|
| Full-disk encryption. | Loss, theft, seizure. |
| Diceware-generated passwords. | User-chosen weak passwords, password reuse, weak random generators. |
| Short fuse screen-locking. Not user configurable. | Unauthorized access to unattended computer. |
| Unprivileged user account. | Privilege escalation. |
| Automatic updates. | Long vulnerability windows. |
| Vendor-signed updates, dependencies as a Merkle tree. | Supply-chain attacks. |
| Containerized browser, email, office apps, and external device (USB sticks) mounting. | Privilege escalation, data exfiltration. |
| Mandatory internal email encryption and signature. Mandatory external email signature. Available external email encryption. Internal Public Key Infrastructure. | Eavesdropping, email phishing, executive impersonation, Business Email Compromise. |
| In-browser password manager. | Weak passwords, password sharing, most phishing attempts (provided your users are not stupid). |
The VAUBAN laptop line will protect individual users against almost all threats you will realistically encounter. At 999€ apiece, it's a steal !
Our custom, hardened, GNU Guix Linux distribution comes preinstalled on your swarm of laptops, including containerized applications for all your office needs (Web browser, Email client, Audio and Video conferencing, Office suite).
Additionally, we'll generate a unique GPG keypair on each laptop and ensure every public key is trusted by every other laptop in the fleet, creating a secure web of trust that guarantees seamless and safe communication across your entire team.
We may, at your convenience, just deliver the laptops or synchronize with your IT department for easy integration into your existing IT infrastructure.
Buy for 999€ apiece !Iron Belt
There is no CLOUD, there is only someone else's computer.
Run your own server and get additional protection for your VAUBAN laptops against:
- Ransomware attacks
- Data loss
| Feature: | Protects against: |
|---|---|
| Encrypted backups on an append-only medium, on two different remote sites. | Ransomware, floods, fires, earthquakes, nuclear war, seizures. |
| Mandatory VPN connection. | Hostile networks. Content injection. |
| Own file sharing and conferencing server | Data leaks, vendor lock-in, unvetted proprietary software. |
The IRON BELT servers will complement your fleet of VAUBAN laptops, offering additional protection against remote attacks, catastrophic data loss events and ransomware attacks.
Your VAUBAN laptops will come preconfigured for use with the IRON BELT servers, and the servers, in turn, will be configured to only let your VAUBAN laptops through.
Rent for 999€ / year !Or ask for a quote for an on-premises installation, starting at 4999€: email edk -at- beaver-labs -dot- com.
Security training
If you buy ou VAUBAN line, your users become your weakest link.
This 6 hours remote training teaches the basics of operational security to VAUBAN users, in the context of the software environment installed and configured for them on the VAUBAN laptops (and optionally on the IRON CLOUD servers).
| Feature: | Protects against: |
|---|---|
| Password best practices | Password sharing, phishing, weak passwords. |
| Cryptography and networking basics. | Key misuse, data loss, data leaks. |
| Common threats, their motives and means. | Phishing and social engineering. |
| VAUBAN software usage. | Misuse and human error. |
The VAUBAN line will protect you from the most common threats, but sophisticated attacks targetting your organization specifically will certainly exploit the human factor.
Harden this part of your organization, too, by teaching your users the best practices. Our VAUBAN line makes it easy to have great operational security, provided nobody leaves the door of the fort open.
Book from 999€ / person !Or ask for a quote for a group discount or in-person training, email edk -at- beaver-labs -dot- com.
Verdun
Good enough for Snowden.
On top of all of the above, this laptop protects you against state level actors, as long as they don't have physical access to you and the device at the same time.
| Feature: | Protects against: |
|---|---|
| All the features of a standalone VAUBAN. | Almost all malware, seizures, etc. |
| Decoy password. | Being forced to give up the password. |
| Mandatory TOR access. | Hostile networks. Content injection. Surveillance. |
| Automatic updates from the TAILS project. | Us being compromised. The TAILS project is a tougher target. |
The VERDUN laptop is a laptop with the Intel Management Engine disabled and a customized TAILS installation.
It is the state of the art for people who need protection from remote state level actors.
On top of the security features of TAILS, we provide the amenities of the VAUBAN laptop, including kickstarting the GPG web of trust.
It offers a reasonable protection against physical state actors, but nothing will ever protect you against physical duress, or a treacherous insider.
Buy for 2999€ apiece !Maginot
Reasearch project.
A text-only terminal on an open-hardware architecture using a bootstrapped fully-open source operating system. Almost unhackable.
| Feature: | Protects against: |
|---|---|
| Open hardware. | Hardware backdoors or other "management engines". |
| Bootstrapped operating system. | Trusting trust attacks. |
| Text-only. | Bugs in the graphics stack, makes it uninteresting to pedophiles. |
The MAGINOT project aims at providing users with a laptop whose whole stack, from application software down to the hardware design, is open and auditable.
The software will be entirely bootstrapped from a minimal very short (<1kB) binary blob.
No satisfactory hardware platform has been found yet, but research is ongoing.
F.A.Q.
What about social engineering ?
Social problems require social solutions. We can train your users. We make it easy to follow proper procedure, and hard to deviate from the best practices, but NOTHING will ever protect from a clueless user.
Why should we trust you ?
Unless you intend to become a cybersecurity expert and install the software yourself, you will need to trust someone. We stand a lot to lose by betraying our clients, so we are likely not to. We may get unvoluntarily compromised, but so can anyone.
The French got their asses handed to them at the start of WWII, why would you call your most secure laptop "Maginot" ?
The main Maginot line forts held on for days despite being entirely surrounded and losing their support artillery and infantry. They had to be told of the armistice before they stopped fighting.
The name is a reminder that a sufficiently engineered fortification will tactically hold, but can be doomed by a moronic strategy. Similarly, the most secure laptop will not protect you against bad operational security.
Mailing list
- All our emails are in plain text (no hidden trackers, all links are explicit).
- We will never sell, or rent our emails list.
- The emails are sent from an address you can reply to, and your replies will be read.
- You can unsubscribe by sending an email saying "unsubscribe".
- All our emails' subjects start with [Counterscarp], so you can easily filter them.
Legal bullshit
We value your privacy and online safety. Our website is free from cookies, javascript, or any form of client-side tracking, ensuring your browsing experience remains private and secure. However our payment processor, to which you will be taken when you buy laptops or book a training, uses many form of tracking to prevent fraud. You may contact us at edk -at- beaver-labs -dot- com in order to discuss other payment options.
The EU gives you a right to access the data we have on you, but because we don't collect any data on you (shocking, in this day and age), this point is kinda moot. If you gave us your email address and want us to forget about it, reply to one of our email and tell us so.
This website and the product and services it proposes are operated by SASU Beaver Labs, a one-person company incorporated in Paris, France. Its registration number is 837 810 100 00029, its official business address is 72 rue Hermel 75018 Paris.
Because the laptops and training are sold online, it is mandatory to provide a link to the Online Dispute Resolution EU platform: https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/main/index.cfm
Terms and conditions: all purchases are final. Delivery is free in Europe and my take up to 3 weeks. If we are unable to deliver the laptop within 3 weeks and you don't want to wait more, you are entitled to a full refund.
This page and all its assets are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 except for
- the header image, Photo by Boban Simonovski on Unsplash
- the picture of the Vauban fortification by wikipedia user Luftfahrer
- the picture of the Verdun monument by M.Minderhoud
- the picture of the Maginot fort by wikipedia user Loiseaulybre
