OK, ... so what would the Hacker News Guide to Online Family Security look like?
- ISPs - Routers - Ad Blockers - OS - Data storage / backups - Facebook or not ? - ios v android ...
The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data
71–80 of 119 posts
Re: The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data
#72"Buy and download antivirus software from a reputable source such as McAfee, Norton, or Symantec." Installing more proprietary software with unrestricted access seems like a huge step backwards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_%28software%29#A...
It's pretty simple that they are looking to protect the user from the everyday threats (hint hint: Bare Minimum in the title). Also while I'm sure your superman with a "security degree" that looks down on all the mere mortals. You would stand no chance against an government agency with all the time in the world and a blank check.
Re: The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data
#73"Buy and download antivirus software from a reputable source such as McAfee, Norton, or Symantec." Installing more proprietary software with unrestricted access seems like a huge step backwards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_%28software%29#A...
Previously, from a former Mozilla developer [1]: > At best, there is negligible evidence that major non-MS AV products give a net improvement in security. More likely, they hurt security significantly; for example, see bugs in AV products listed in Google's Project Zero. These bugs indicate that not only do these products open many attack vectors, but in general their developers do not follow standard security practi…
So does the Linux/Linux-Kernel, Windows/Windows-Kernel, OSX/OSX-Kernel. Better not install those reputable OSs.
Re: The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data
#74The advice was basic high level advice which at this point should be common knowledge for anyone using the internet. I can see why they took down the blog post because it was disappointing content
Re: The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data
#75More than half of that I wouldn't advice or would have serious caveats about the advice given... This is really a strange document... Just a few examples: "Don’t open emails, texts, ]...] from anyone you don’t know, don’t recognize, or weren’t expecting" "Don’t use unsecure Wi-Fi networks" Largely outdated due to HTTPS and completely impractical. Everyone uses the Wifi at starbucks. "Even better, get a VPN (virtual p…
Mozilla seems to have a habit of occasionally demonstrating really poor judgment in the areas they are supposed to be leaders on, like privacy and user control.
Re: The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data
#76It was removed:
https://twitter.com/asadotzler/status/1068961020540899329?s=...
But here's the original article:
https://web.archive.org/web/20181130081659/https://blog.mozi...
Re: The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data
#77I've been wondering recently, (how) do identity protection or fraud protection software services actually work?
I feel like someone actually doing that right would be a big deal but haven't heard anything special about the market leaders.
Re: The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Previously, from a former Mozilla developer [1]: > At best, there is negligible evidence that major non-MS AV products give a net improvement in security. More likely, they hurt security significantly; for example, see bugs in AV products listed in Google's Project Zero. These bugs indicate that not only do these products open many attack vectors, but in general their developers do not follow standard security practi…
So does the Linux/Linux-Kernel, Windows/Windows-Kernel, OSX/OSX-Kernel. Better not install those reputable OSs.
I think you're missing the cost/benefit calculation. Using any software makes you vulnerable to your software being compromised. But we take that risk because we get something out of using software. If you want to run Windows apps, you need Windows. AV software is different because they open up vulnerabilities, but don't give you any benefits. You can't run Excel without Windows; you can run it without AV software. So adding AV software requires some careful thought as to whether or not the cost/benefit is worth it. What the above comments are saying is that in a world where Windows Defender exists, installing third-party AV software is not worth it. The cost outweighs the benefit.
Re: The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm by no means and expert is this field, but I thought at some point I had heard that using words like the xkcd comic were actually less secure, I thought what I heard was that there is a type of dictionary search that can be more efficient in cracking those "all words" passwords (as in, you don't really have 44 bits of entropy). Again, I've got no source, and am not very knowledgeable in this space, so someone corr…
Assuming you pull these four words randomly (not-human-random, actually random) out of a dictionary of at least 2048 words, and separate them by a space, you have a password of (at least) 44 bits of entropy. There's no way a "dictionary" attack can reduce the possible password space to less than 2 44 possibilities.
Some quick googling gave me this:https://paul.reviews/passwords-why-using-3-random-words-is-a...
(also good stuff here: https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/151165/is-rando...)
It seems the consensus is to use 5-6 words, and following the xkcd trick of 4 may not be enough.
Re: The Bare Minimum You Should Do to Protect Your Family's Data
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
So does the Linux/Linux-Kernel, Windows/Windows-Kernel, OSX/OSX-Kernel. Better not install those reputable OSs.
I think you're missing the cost/benefit calculation. Using any software makes you vulnerable to your software being compromised. But we take that risk because we get something out of using software. If you want to run Windows apps, you need Windows. AV software is different because they open up vulnerabilities, but don't give you any benefits. You can't run Excel without Windows; you can run it without AV software. S…
Defender doesn't get updated as fast as other AV that is why it is free and if you actually get a MS enterprise AV is a ton of money compared to other enterprise AVs. I have had Defender not find viruses other AV will caught as long as a week. Also defender also opens up vulnerabilities. I didn't miss the cost/benefit calculation.
https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-26/p...