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Basic Security Precautions for Non-Profits and Journalists

techsolidarity.org

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Re: Basic Security Precautions for Non-Profits and Journalists

#121

Post by weeks »

zobzu wrote: post #119
weeks wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disabling Verified Boot and not having Google Play Services would dramatically reduce the security posture of an Android device. Disclaimer: I work at Google.

you can keep verified boot on custom roms. play services expose you to googles nsa'd taps we'll hear about in 5y. source: im another google engineer

https://source.android.com/security/verifiedboot/verified-bo...

How do you propose a custom rom can establish hardware root of trust without being signed by the device manufacturer?

Re: Basic Security Precautions for Non-Profits and Journalists

#122

Post by kasey_junk »

krick wrote: post #108
kasey_junk wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Security professionals tend to care about open source over closed source much less than many other factors. Things that seem more important^: - Well known and vetted data structures/algorithms etc - Vulnerability history - Large install base - well regarded, well funded security team vetting the project - capacity and history of fighting expensive legal battles on behalf of its users. Its possible that there are andr…

I see. I think there might be some distinction in regards of what different people view as "secure". Say, your phone produced by my company may be completely transparent to me and completely impenetrable to, say, tptacek. As I understand, in that narrative it is considered secure as you (the user) are supposed to trust me (the manufacturer). That's why iPhone is considered secure in comparison to Android, which is si…

No. Closed source binaries are not impenetrable to researchers. For a security audit you have to study the binary in any case so open source is a bonus not a requirement.

Re: Basic Security Precautions for Non-Profits and Journalists

#123

Post by Spooky23 »

ENOTTY wrote: post #23
maxerickson wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a documented attack on say, Apple's Magic Keyboard? (if it is true that some (relatively modern) bluetooth keyboards are sniffable and some aren't, I'm sure you can convince them to amend the article with specific models that are believed to be better)

I'd second adding recommendations for specific models. There are a lot of BT keyboards on the market of varying quality.

You need to think about the risks/threat model. If you have an attacker close enough to capture Bluetooth, it would be not a stretch to intercept keyboard input from a cable.

Re: Basic Security Precautions for Non-Profits and Journalists

#124

Post by krick »

kasey_junk wrote: post #122
krick wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see. I think there might be some distinction in regards of what different people view as "secure". Say, your phone produced by my company may be completely transparent to me and completely impenetrable to, say, tptacek. As I understand, in that narrative it is considered secure as you (the user) are supposed to trust me (the manufacturer). That's why iPhone is considered secure in comparison to Android, which is si…

No. Closed source binaries are not impenetrable to researchers. For a security audit you have to study the binary in any case so open source is a bonus not a requirement.

I didn't imply otherwise. I'm just wondering how it is iPhone is considered secure when it is happily sharing your data with Apple. Or doesn't it?

Re: Basic Security Precautions for Non-Profits and Journalists

#125

Post by Spooky23 »

rocqua wrote: post #82
tptacek wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A weakness in the way these guidelines are worded is that it's not clear enough how much security experts discourage people from using email. Email is the single largest risk most at-risk people have, and not just because only 2 email providers have a team capable of securing their infrastructure or because the protocol is weak, but also because of existing collection capabilities and because of its "archive-by-defau…

Why g-mail instead of a more security focused provider like proton-mail? It seems to me like the only downside of proton-mail is that it is less well-known, but I'd compare it to signal vs whatsapp. And you can get journalists to use signal. Only other thing I can think of is google being more secure by virtue of being bigger.

There was a thread a few days ago talking about Google security looking at how protect against compromised shared GPUs. (https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2017/02/fuzzing-PCI-Exp...)

How many organizations globally are doing research like that?

Re: Basic Security Precautions for Non-Profits and Journalists

#126

Post by idlewords »

snowwrestler wrote: post #44

It's unfortunate that this guide is not presented in two columns, at least partially. It's hard to line up the Don't's with Do's. For example in the Don't section it says "[Don't] Store sensitive information in cloud services like Evernote or Dropbox." Ok, but where is the corresponding entry in the "Do" section, which tells folks how to store sensitive information? Especially in a way that permits more than one pers…

Thanks for the helpful suggestion! I'll try formatting it this way, too.

Re: Basic Security Precautions for Non-Profits and Journalists

#127

Post by mixedCase »

weeks wrote: post #121
zobzu wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can keep verified boot on custom roms. play services expose you to googles nsa'd taps we'll hear about in 5y. source: im another google engineer

https://source.android.com/security/verifiedboot/verified-bo... How do you propose a custom rom can establish hardware root of trust without being signed by the device manufacturer?

I believe the point is that such a signature is useless since the software signed as safe is actually unsafe, while a self-signed rom at least has a chance to be safe.

Re: Basic Security Precautions for Non-Profits and Journalists

#128

Post by Spooky23 »

krick wrote: post #54

Is iPhone actually fine replacement for Android in terms of security? I never owned an iPhone, but I was guessing that it is closed-source proprietary piece of hardware with closed-source proprietary piece of software running, which is perfectly able to be transferring all your data to the vendor and most likely does exactly that.

I've had to provide secured smartphones to an organization, and unfortunately they needed to use Android devices for a specific mission critical application.

iPhones are easy to setup and hard to fuck up. You use DEP and it arrives from the factory with a signed profile for your organization. You deliver it to the user, they sign in, and the MDM takes it from there.

With Android, forget it. They were at the time using LUKS for FDE, and there's no segmentation in the OS. So you need need a third party container solution (either from Samsung or another vendor) to protect your data. So you need a pre-boot password, device passcode, a container password, and possibly more. It's a real shitshow.

Apple lets you take the same level of control that a company would have for free with the Configurator app as well.

Re: Basic Security Precautions for Non-Profits and Journalists

#129

Post by Spooky23 »

krick wrote: post #124
kasey_junk wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Closed source binaries are not impenetrable to researchers. For a security audit you have to study the binary in any case so open source is a bonus not a requirement.

I didn't imply otherwise. I'm just wondering how it is iPhone is considered secure when it is happily sharing your data with Apple. Or doesn't it?

It's only sharing stuff with Apple if you allow it.
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