Template:Did you know nominations/USBKill

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:28, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

USBKill

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USBKill logo

... that the anti-forensic software USBKill (logo pictured) was created to prevent data from being seized from logged-in computers, as happened in Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht's arrest?

Reviewed: Sekrenyi festival

Created by Daniel Case (talk). Self-nominated at 06:02, 5 June 2016 (UTC).

Reviewed; the only concern I have, DC, is with the hook. It's cited in two places in the article, once to an article that talks about the arrest, but doesn't mention USBKill, and once to USBKill's readme on GitHub, which does mention the arrest, but doesn't explicitly say that this tool was created in response to the arrest. Are we sure that's a strong enough support for a hook? I wouldn't want to block this otherwise good-to-go DYK entirely over it, but if there's an alternate hook, or a different source that supports this hook more explicitly, it might be worth considering. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 17:20, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

@Writ Keeper: I am considering both your response here and your message on my talk page in this response.

I am changing the wording to make more clear that Hepahest0s meant it to prevent something like what happened to Ulbricht. That, I think, is more clearly supported by the text of the sources (although it seems to me that everyone believes that was the direct inspiration).

As for it being a response to his conviction, well, if Ulbricht hadn't been arrested in a way that allowed the FBI to take his laptop from him as they did so (they knew he might have some sort of encryption scheme set up), he probably couldn't have been convicted, at least not of the more serious charges that got him a life sentence. Although it does seem as if it took the conviction to actually motivate the creation of the software. Daniel Case (talk) 19:16, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't really doubt that it was the inspiration, it's just one of those niggling "what-does-the-source-really-say" things. I've no doubt either that you're correct about the manner of the arrest leading to the conviction. But in any event, the reformulated hook more than satisfies my concerns, thanks;

approved. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:26, 6 June 2016 (UTC)