131–140 of 469 posts
ex-AOSP dev here Android and ChromiumOS are likely the most trustable computing platforms out there; doubly so for Android running on Pixels. If you don't prefer the ROM Google ships with, you can flash GrapheneOS or CalyxOS and relock the bootloader. Pixels have several protections in place: - Hardware root of trust: This is the anchor on which the entire TCB (trusted computing base) is built. - Cryptographic verifi…
> it seems it is most further ahead of the mainstream OSes Noob here, I recall often hearing that iOS has superior security to Android. Has this situation reversed in the last few years, or was it never true?
I assume a freshly installed OS is compromised [1] and the hardware it is on is also compromised in the BIOS and firmware at very least by state actors but then I also assume those state actors have poorly vetted contractors that may also be compromised by other nations i.e. who pays the most gets access. I would not be surprised for a moment if they have competing backdoors that try to block one another. Since I can not control any of this I just imagine the national actors of the world are watching my screen and yawning. More likely the latest iteration of ECHELON AI is yawning. I instead focus on securing important externalities making bank accounts read-only from the web, not all banks will do this. I also diversify where my assets are stored and make a best effort to require physical access.
Beyond that layer I do all the usual hardening practices but that only goes so far as every browser likely also has intentional weaknesses in them. Even FireJail and SELinux/AppArmor will likely just happily relay malicious instructions. Addons may raise the bar keeping some script-kiddies off my machine but I never for a moment assume that it stops government contractors from relaying instructions to the backdoors in the hardware and/or OS and ultimately to the hidden CPU instructions that likely take multiple layers of obfuscated instructions to tickle meaning SandSifter will never find them.
The above is for PC's. For cell phones I assume FAANG are interactively on my phone and since most of them were initially funded by the government. I do not use it for anything sensitive. I also assume that all cell phones have backdoors added by their manufacturer. Each one does seem to dial home to different places and make unique DNS requests. Putting phones into developer/debug mode does seem to quiet them down which is the opposite than I would have expected so maybe they know someone may be watching. i.e. malware knows it's in a sandbox
Wi-Fi Access Points are a story in and of themselves.
Why should I care about state actors? That one's easy. The best contractors will have leaks in their OpsSec and for-profit companies will acquire the weaknesses and use them to do illegal and unethical things to citizens for a price and political, economic and a myriad of other motivations. I would not be surprised if some government actors sell off access and end up working for said companies.
[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34388990 [and hundreds of other threads]
You should assume all devices are compromised
*compromisable
On a similar note services and networks should be treated as compromised as well, meaning you must use encryption, authentication and in general make sure to limit attack surface.
And all of that boils down that you should make sure you should not rely on services, users, etc. don't for example access personal information they are not supposed to access.
After all the problem with things like Ransomware is exactly that this isn't assumed.
So I feel fairly confident about the machine firmware & OS. Less so about my keyboard for example. Also because i opt out of a lot of the securities (e.g. i download from homebrew rather than using app store apps), I can’t be sure i’m not being compromised.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it seems it is most further ahead of the mainstream OSes Noob here, I recall often hearing that iOS has superior security to Android. Has this situation reversed in the last few years, or was it never true?
Isn’t most of the value here in not allowing sideloading? In iOS your grandma/child cannot be tricked into clicking “allow apps from untrusted sources”, which is how most breaches happen.
Either the sandbox is very weak and Apple instead relies on App Store audits, or they disallow users installing apps outside the app store to protect their 30% tax that makes them a LOT of money.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm genuinely curious: Do you check/audit the code you compile and run on your machine? Going with the assumption of "no": How is it then different than downloading a prebuilt version from an official source?
It feels like a cargo cult approach to the problem. "I'm safe because I compile from source" is an absurd statement when a million LoC is involved.
I assume it is, per Intel ME / AMD PSP's ability to read everything - memory, CPU registers, disk, inspect all network traffic, directly utilize onboard GbE for bidirectional communication. For adversaries below the level of the US intelligence agencies, I run everything virtualized and compartmentalized with Qubes, the installation image for which I verified the dev-provided cryptographic signature matches. I try to…
> refuse to connect directly websites protected by cloudflare What do you do in case you want to use a website protected by cloudflare?
For strictly reading public webpages, public paywall bypass tools and archive sites work pretty well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What bugs me is when this is applied to remote workers in a way that seems optimized for in-office environments. For example IT enforces that your screen becomes locked after 15 minutes of inactivity and also ties in your local computer 's user login password to your SSO login to access everything. It's a contradiction around password best practices. If you force people to input their password multiple times a day th…
TouchID or windows machines with Windows Hello touch solves morale issue. Then they don't type most of the time and the length of 'memorable passwords' (like correct-horse4BATTERY!staple ) isn't a problem.