Disable USB for application protection

Topics about the Hardware of Revolution Pi
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alizaki
Posts: 2
Joined: 23 Jul 2018, 12:10
Answers: 0

Disable USB for application protection

Post by alizaki »

Hi,
I am using core3, with some propriatory software running on it.
Is there a way to disable usage of USB? So users can't mount the internal emmc using rpi-boot driver.

Steps should be something like this:
- Install jessi on revpi.
- Deploy the software and configurations to it
- Enable SSH
- Disable USB <---- This is what I am looking for.

So, the only way to access revpi is thorough LAN.

I want to do this, to prevent any user from mounting the internel emmc and read it.
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volker
Posts: 1046
Joined: 09 Nov 2016, 15:41
Answers: 1

Re: Disable USB for application protection

Post by volker »

There is only the hard way: Get some super glue and put 3 drops into the connector ;-)
Honetsly: The boot procedure is something very deep in the compute module and there is no way to change the boot ROM in the Broadcom SoC. And this boot ROM does simply monitor a GPIO which is driven by the USB +5V to switch between the 2 available boot possibilities. So that is very very close to the hardware and there is no software way to change the boot mechanism. If you have a look in the circuit drawing you may sse that there is a FET in the signal pathway form USB 5 V to the GPIO which controls the boot process. If you have just a few systems you could manipulate the circuit at this point. But this is definitly no solution for a larger series of products.
If you want to protect your software you could bind it to the hardware using the secure chips serial number. Thus a copy of your software would not work on a differnt hardware.
Unser RevPi Motto: Don't just claim it - make it!
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