Bounty Available (>$2,000) for QubesOS BusKill package

Friends,

We’re happy to announce that we have funding available to package BusKill in QubesOS as a contrib package.

Bounty Now Available for BusKill Contrib Package in QubesOS

Thanks to a generous donation from NovaCustom, we’re offering a bounty to anyone (including you!) who packages BusKill as an official contrib package for QubesOS.

About BusKill

BusKill is a laptop kill-cord. It’s a USB cable with a magnetic breakaway that you attach to your body and connect to your computer.

If the connection between you to your computer is severed, then your device will lock, shutdown, or shred its encryption keys — thus keeping your encrypted data safe from thieves that steal your device.

About NovaCustom

In Mar 2015, Wessel klein Snakenborg (founder of NovaCustom) started selling highly-customizable Linux laptops from Europe.

In Aug 2021, NovaCustom released their first laptop (NV40) with coreboot pre-installed with Dasharo.

Photo of a screw thats been covered with a unique pattern of (multi-color) glitter nail polish
NovaCustom offers anti-tamper options, including glitter nail polish applied to the chassis screws (photos sent to you via Proton Mail before shipment — specify PGP key at checkout for e2ee)

Since 2023, NovaCustom has been a leader in hardware security:

And now, in Apr 2026, NovaCustom is further working to increase the accessibility of BusKill to QubesOS users, by sponsoring the submission of an official QubesOS contrib package.

Funding Available

If you’d like to claim this bounty for yourself, please

  1. Read the details of the bounty, and then
  2. Submit a proposal by commenting on this GitHub issue

Claim Bounty

opencollective.com/buskill/projects/qubes-package

Moreover, if you’re a QubesOS user and you’d like to donate additional funds in support of this bounty, you can do so here.

Stay safe,

The BusKill Team

http://www.buskillvampfih2iucxhit3qp36i2zzql3u6pmkeafvlxs3tlmot5yad.onion

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You can also find this announcement on NovaCustom’s website here:

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I would like to add that the scenario of “triggered by someone physically yanking your laptop away from you” is just one scenario, and since the whole idea here is in the software package, this can be used in many other clever ways. bare in mind that the cable, magnetic connector, and usb device have nothing special about them. it’s all about the software package that monitors a specific (any!) usb device for removal. Once you have this software compatible to our beloved Qubes-OS, you can be creative with how you implement it, possibly turning even the most innocent usb peripheral device into your kill-switch :nerd_face:

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