181–190 of 469 posts
Best advice I have, for what it's worth is to wipe and reformat from a known clean image regularly. If you haven't been hacked yet, stands to reason you wont be hacked going forward.
That said, I often install packages I don't fully vet, and grant permissions I probably shouldn't, either in the name of curiosity (how else do we learn and experiment), or necessity.
[1]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/security
[2]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/List_of_applications/Securi...
Great question. I don't anymore. Decades ago when I had a 286 and knew what each file did and what all the software was, and threats were limited and crude, I had good confidence of controlling my machine. Today, when my laptop has millions of files and each website - even hacker news - could inject something malicious and my surface is so broad (browsers applications extensions libraries everything) and virtually an…
On the backup question, this is one reason why I have a set of backups that are physically disconnected and not automated.
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I have a backup NAS that's normally powered off, but it's scheduled to turn on, perform backup, shut down. It doesn't wake on LAN and there should be no way of knowing it exists outside of checking DHCP static addresses reservations - and now that I mention it, maybe I should remove it from there too. This minimises the size of the window, and network-snoopable information, required to compromise this set of backups.
I think, perhaps ignorantly, That may prevent some human being or intelligent agent specifically targeting your nas. I don't think it would help against situations where your primary system is being encrypted for a while, and thus your backups eventually get overwritten with bad stuff.
Until the day we get sandboxing, well-defined interfacing with user data and stuff in desktop computing...
Imagine the desktop's security model, if you can call it that, on mobile. It would be madness.
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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.
The linux kernel is much more than a million LoC. Closer to 30 million.
If nobody actually audits the source, and the closed-source binary has had other types of testing done on it, it's likely that the closed source binary will be more secure.
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…
All that looks good on paper, but a lot of apps require full disk access and can easily run in the background, so how "trustable" can that really be in practice? With iOS at least I know that apps really are sandboxed and cannot access anything unless I grant permission. No app can ever attempt to access my photos unless I explicitly pick a photo or grant partial/total access. Even then it's read-only or "write with…
And you can deny the file access permission like any normal permission, most modern apps request music or videos and photos, rarley an app requests full file access.
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> 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?
Maybe you're thinking of privacy, not security? In terms of privacy, Android is "compromised" by default, i.e. Google collects and stores a ton of private information about you. I believe Apple used to be much better, and still is, but getting worse.
> "Compromised" meaning that malware hasn't been installed or that it's not being accessed by malicious third parties. This could be at the BIOS, firmware, OS, app or any other other level. I don't believe there is a way to be 100% certain, but if I had to go to a store and pick a new device with the lowest likelihood of being compromised, it would be a desktop, a laptop, or a tablet running ChromeOS[1]. [1] https://…
Many would consider a ChromeOS device compromised from day one.
From the security perspective, it's much better, because every single app is running in a sandbox.
I don't even use Chrome for web browsing on ChromeOS, since Firefox works just fine with flatpak[1].
[1] https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/9145439?hl=en
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Lock my computer: Always[1][2]. Check for keylogger thumbdrives: I use a laptop so it would be immediately obvious. But now that you say it I haven't checked the charger USB-outlet on the back of my cabled keyboard. [1]: it has happened I have failed. Once a year or something. [2]: I sometimes try to allow myself to go downstairs in my own house to fetch a cup coffe without locking when I am alone, but I find it so s…
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…
If you're on windows, there's a powertoy[1] called "Awake" that can keep your screen on indefinitely despite IT rules. I liberally use this on machines I'm remotely connected to because there's 0 reason why a remote session should lock if I'm active on the computer looking at a different window.