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Ask HN: My country is undergoing a coup, which encryption software should I use?

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Re: Ask HN: My country is undergoing a coup, which encryption software should I use?

#21

Post by subsection1h »

sdfzguf wrote: post #2

Technical subreddits often have up to date wiki entries. - https://old.reddit.com/r/PrivacyGuides/ - https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/ You can also look here: - https://www.privacyguides.org/ All of this can only be seen as a starting point. The provided links will not give a thoroughly picture. Look further.

FYI, Privacy Guides is a shitshow. It was formerly privacytools.io[1], and in 2019, the creator[2] of privacytools.io stopped contributing[3] and a new contributor[4] immediately focused on donations[5], became the admin[6] and took control[7] of most assets, including donations but excluding the domain and Twitter account[8]. In 2021, the creator of privacytools.io launched a new privacytools.io[9] and added affiliate links[10], and the Privacy Guides team shut down r/privacytoolsIO rather than return it[11] to the creator. Like I said, a shitshow.

[1] https://github.com/privacytools/privacytools.io

[2] https://www.reddit.com/user/BurungHantu

[3] https://github.com/privacytools/privacytools.io/commits?auth...

[4] https://github.com/jonaharagon

[5] https://github.com/privacytools/privacytools.io/commits?afte...

[6] https://github.com/privacytools/privacytools.io/commit/4b60a...

[7] https://redd.it/tuo7mm

[8] https://twitter.com/privacytoolsIO

[9] https://redd.it/pxtw2y

[10] https://www.reddit.com/r/VPNTorrents/comments/raftz6/i_made_...

[11] https://redd.it/qk7vn0

Re: Ask HN: My country is undergoing a coup, which encryption software should I use?

#22

Post by gtirloni »

farseer wrote: post #5

State overreach and surveillance is a global trend. Don't mind me saying this: As a Jewish citizen with fair skin, a dual passport you would probably do fine, unless you are an Arab... Even under the most tyrannical regimes such as Iran, Myanmar, Russia, China etc. The elite are rarely targeted by the state apparatus. If you are a majority ethnic group with family links in the military, bureaucracy, big business poli…

> Take your family and run.

Pretty much my advice when some friends started to discuss having guns at home.

If I ever find myself in a situation where I need a gun (because of gang violence, robbery, etc), I'll move neighborhood->city->state->country as needed.

It's less critical (IMHO), when it comes to state surveillance (your privacy is jeopardized but your physical security may or may not be, it depends) but I'd apply the same approach.

Re: Ask HN: My country is undergoing a coup, which encryption software should I use?

#23

Post by grayhatter »

Encryption is impossible* after the fact. The most important thing you could do today is read! Learn as much as you can. figure out the basics of both operational security, and bootstraping encryption. Then, and here's the important part, share everything you've learned as widely as you possibly can, write guides, write tutorials, make videos. All of information you need is available, but if the people you want to communicate with don't know it, or don't have access to it. It doesn't help either of you.

Re: Ask HN: My country is undergoing a coup, which encryption software should I use?

#24

Post by grayhatter »

grayhatter wrote: post #23

Encryption is impossible* after the fact. The most important thing you could do today is read! Learn as much as you can. figure out the basics of both operational security, and bootstraping encryption. Then, and here's the important part, share everything you've learned as widely as you possibly can, write guides, write tutorials, make videos. All of information you need is available, but if the people you want to co…

Impossible but only for some definitions of the word. Put more simply it's much much easier to have it *before* you need it.

Re: Ask HN: My country is undergoing a coup, which encryption software should I use?

#25

Post by cookiengineer »

monsieurgaufre wrote: post #17
cookiengineer wrote: post #14

Use briar [1] for online+offline end-to-end encrypted messaging. Use LineageOS [2] without gapps (aka without Google Play Services) and get a device that is officially supported with current LineageOS version. Don't use any XDA developer builds, because they're known to be infected with malware. Obviously don't use Meta or Google apps, because that's where the backdoors are for governments. Don't use WhatsApp, don't…

I really don't want to derail the thread as it is useful, but i'm curious about the security reasons against Debian/Ubuntu.

For reference I've included the OVAL datasets [1] [2] for Debian and Ubuntu, as well as the CVE list [3] for Debian that's used as a basis for generating the issues/view in the frontend. For argument's sake (feature freezes are bad for security is my baseline argument) I'm focussing on Ubuntu LTS which is jammy at the time.

The issue terminology you want to look for is "diverged too much from upstream" or a bunch of different similar EOL or end-of-life or "end of life" tags that are not standardized in any security tracker's format. I'd argue that both security teams use a software that uses free-form textareas for setting the tags of the issues (e.g. closed, fixed, and other).

Accumulative word list that might be incomplete, to discover those kind of issues:

- "bug, not a security problem"

- "cannot reproduce"

- "eol"

- "end-of-life"

- "end of standard support"

- "end of esm support"

- "out of standard support"

- "reached end of life"

- "ignored"

- "changes too intrusive"

- "contains no code"

- "code is different"

- "code is very different"

- "code not built"

- "code not compiled"

- "code-not-compiled"

- "code not present"

- "code not-present"

- "code-not-present"

- "code not shipped"

- "not-in-code"

- "disputed"

- "fix would break"

- "intrusive"

- "not remotely exploitable"

- "was deferred"

- "was needed"

- "was pending"

- "no server code"

- "no update available"

- "no security impact"

- "not available"

- "not security vulnerability"

- "not supported"

- "not upstream fix"

- "ugly backport"

- "update not available"

- "upstream version is not redistributable"

- "removed from archive"

- "replaced by"

- "superseded"

- "superseded by"

- "too intrusive"

Source: Am building a scraper and vulnerability database that is cross-distro, and has different confidence factors for different linux distributions (for mentioned reasons). [4]

[1] https://www.debian.org/security/oval/oval-definitions-bullse...

[2] https://security-metadata.canonical.com/oval/com.ubuntu.jamm...

[3] https://salsa.debian.org/security-tracker-team/security-trac...

[4] https://github.com/tholian-network/vulnerabilities

Re: Ask HN: My country is undergoing a coup, which encryption software should I use?

#26

Post by tianqi »

farseer wrote: post #5

State overreach and surveillance is a global trend. Don't mind me saying this: As a Jewish citizen with fair skin, a dual passport you would probably do fine, unless you are an Arab... Even under the most tyrannical regimes such as Iran, Myanmar, Russia, China etc. The elite are rarely targeted by the state apparatus. If you are a majority ethnic group with family links in the military, bureaucracy, big business poli…

I'm afraid I don't agree with this. In China's Cultural Revolution(1966-1976), the elite were the prime target of persecution. They included the intellectual class, the rich, and even political leaders. Millions of elites committed suicide or were persecuted to death during this movement, including even the 2nd president of the country.

Re: Ask HN: My country is undergoing a coup, which encryption software should I use?

#27

Post by tcmart14 »

tapoxi wrote: post #19
cookiengineer wrote: post #14

Use briar [1] for online+offline end-to-end encrypted messaging. Use LineageOS [2] without gapps (aka without Google Play Services) and get a device that is officially supported with current LineageOS version. Don't use any XDA developer builds, because they're known to be infected with malware. Obviously don't use Meta or Google apps, because that's where the backdoors are for governments. Don't use WhatsApp, don't…

Why would Mint, a desktop-oriented fork of Ubuntu, be more secure than Ubuntu?

No clue if they are right. If they are, I can imagine it is because Mint would be stripped of any telemetry and other corporate bits of Ubuntu that Canonical has in there. From what I know, Canonical/Ubuntu does a good job of anonymizing that data and doesn't capture anything sensitive and put it over the wire, however in the worst case scenario of a coup, it probably doesn't hurt to be over cautious.

Although, assuming worst case. I personally say, OpenBSD.

Re: Ask HN: My country is undergoing a coup, which encryption software should I use?

#29

Post by local_issues »

tianqi wrote: post #26
farseer wrote: post #5

State overreach and surveillance is a global trend. Don't mind me saying this: As a Jewish citizen with fair skin, a dual passport you would probably do fine, unless you are an Arab... Even under the most tyrannical regimes such as Iran, Myanmar, Russia, China etc. The elite are rarely targeted by the state apparatus. If you are a majority ethnic group with family links in the military, bureaucracy, big business poli…

I'm afraid I don't agree with this. In China's Cultural Revolution(1966-1976), the elite were the prime target of persecution. They included the intellectual class, the rich, and even political leaders. Millions of elites committed suicide or were persecuted to death during this movement, including even the 2nd president of the country.

That many want to do this again is absolutely insane to me.

I see so much support for Mao BECAUSE of his murder of landlords and business owners, not DESPITE of his atrocities

Re: Ask HN: My country is undergoing a coup, which encryption software should I use?

#30

Post by tianqi »

local_issues wrote: post #29
tianqi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid I don't agree with this. In China's Cultural Revolution(1966-1976), the elite were the prime target of persecution. They included the intellectual class, the rich, and even political leaders. Millions of elites committed suicide or were persecuted to death during this movement, including even the 2nd president of the country.

That many want to do this again is absolutely insane to me. I see so much support for Mao BECAUSE of his murder of landlords and business owners, not DESPITE of his atrocities

They don't want. Where there is no information, people are like zombies just do what the manipulator wants them to do.
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