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Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#331

Post by a-dub »

lrvick wrote: post #159
ignoramous wrote: post #111

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…

IMO we have to step back and be honest that the Linux kernel is simply not equipped to run trusted code and untrusted code in the same memory. New bugs are found every few weeks. If history is of any guide Android and ChromiumOS likely still have many critical bugs the public does not know about yet. Sadly the only choice is to burn extra ram to give every security context a dedicated kernel and virtual machine. Hype…

i think tanenbaum will be vindicated in the end. monolithic kernels are like 90s computer networks with perimeter security. if i were to guess, i'd guess that the future is microkernels with some sort of hardware accelerated secure message passing facility. zero-trust at kernel design scale.

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#332

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

psutor wrote: post #312
nickjj wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since Ubiquity started fown the cloud-first path I’ve switched to Mikrotik I was thinking about getting a Ubiquity router because it has good support for setting up wired VLANs without needing to go down the path of finding a solid OpenWrt router. Is it really true that you can't access the router's dashboard and configure things without associating an online account to your router?

They did add back non-cloud support a while ago after the cloud forcing didn't go over well, but it is a second-class experience. The day after I set my UDM Pro up as non-cloud, it corrupted the login somehow and I had to factory reset it and redo all settings (as it hadn't been running long enough to run any automatic backups first). I capitulated and just set it up again as a cloud login to avoid having the same fi…

> I immediately regretted going with the UDM to save (quite) a few bucks over a OPNsense/pfSense appliance to fit my requirement of handling a full 10G of WAN.

As someone who bit the bullet and sold all their UniFi gear on eBay and switched to OPNsense and Ruckus, I'll tell you that it's been absolutely worth it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#333

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

Alifatisk wrote: post #79
vHMtsdf wrote: post #71

On my and my families windows machines, I try to follow the advice from Taylor Swift who seems to know what she is doing... https://decentsecurity.com/#/securing-your-computer/ In short: 1) secure bootup by locking up BIOS and encrypting your drive 2) set User Access Controls to the highest level 3) install up to date browser with appropriate addons (ublock)

I would wait with getting the latest Windows updates, If I don't see anything in the news after a month, that's when I update.

That month is the highest-risk time, as patches are quickly reversed to find exploits.

Up to a week might be prudent to avoid patches which blow up, but not longer.

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#334

Post by jmole »

ignoramous wrote: post #111

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…

The problem is that third-party OEMs don’t have to run AOSP, they can easily replace any and all code with malicious call-home backdoors, and still pass CTS tests.

As far as I can tell, there is no meaningful protection in place to prevent OEMs from poisoning the Android well (and the Android brand), even without considering the black box firmware running on wifi/BT/LTE/5G modems.

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#335

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

lrvick wrote: post #146

I run QubesOS which compartmentalizes your usb ports, network card, and all your various application workflows into separate virtual machines. It is literally designed to protect you even if part of your system is compromised. https://www.qubes-os.org/intro/ For details on how I use Qubes specifically see: https://github.com/hashbang/book/blob/master/content/docs/se...

> For details on how I use Qubes specifically see: https://github.com/hashbang/book/blob/master/content/docs/se...

How is this not a contradiction?

>6. Manual PRIVILEGED SYSTEM mutations MUST be approved, witnessed, and recorded

>7. PRIVILEGED SYSTEM mutatations MUST be automated and repeatable via code

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#336

Post by deathanatos »

damagednoob wrote: post #314
NikolaNovak wrote: post #16

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…

> how to make backups safe in age of encrypting ransom ware. Versioned, offsite backups. For instance, if you have a database in an AWS account: * Give the backup process write only (I.e. no delete permissions) to a GCP account. * Create the backup in AWS and timestamp it * Copy the backup to GCP using the above permissions. * If you want to be more secure, copy the backup to a USBHDD (daily/weekly) and unplug it.

> Give the backup process write only (I.e. no delete permissions) to a GCP account.

I've looked into this before, and it is just not that easy. "Write" is delete, for most cloud storage systems, for the practical purposes of trying to keep a backup safe. (I.e., you might not be able to delete a blob in some bucket, but if you can write to it, you can just overwrite it with 0s.)

"WORM" (write-once read-many) tends to be the term to search / gets the right documentation from most providers. In GCP's case, it appears to be "set up a retention policy", and that's similar to my experience with other providers. These bring their own set of problems.

That said, encrypting ransomware isn't going to magically determine where your backups are, and for most orgs, having the backup at all (and having it tested) is the priority, not the whole WORM thing.

(Orgs, IMO, also tend to get really uppity about having "database" backups, where "database" == {MySQL, Postgres, etc.}. But then there will be an S3 bucket that also has a bunch of data in it, and that never gets backed up, and nobody even questions that. And half the time it seems impractical to back up, too, due to a mix of cost and S3's design.)

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#337

Post by ParetoOptimal »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #291
ParetoOptimal wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess I could customize my own LiveCD, but last I looked into it, doing so seemed complex and too time consuming to figure out. Here's a 5m solution whose starting point might be acceptable: - install Nix - Follow first two steps at https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Creating_a_NixOS_live_CD to generate iso

That does look simple! Are the steps: 1. Install Nix in a VM or on a clean HD 2. Customize Firefox to my liking 3. follow the two steps you highlight 4. Load my created iso in a VM Right?

> Install Nix in a VM or on a clean HD

You should be safe to avoid this unless your threat model includes a trusting trust type exploit on Nix generating the ISO.

Also, just realized it'll be a little more complex because you'll want to use home-manager to install Firefox plugins and do about:config configuration.

Here are some examples of that in various contexts:

https://github.com/search?q=language%3Anix+programs.firefox+...

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#338

Post by fsflover »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #16

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…

> 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 anything I do involves network connections... I just don't have the confidence.

It doesn't matter how many files your computer has and how many millions of lines of code it runs. There is a concept of Trusted Computing Base (TCB), which is the part of the code that you have to trust.

In Qubes OS it's only about a hundred thousand lines, and doesn't include any browser. The key is security through isolation.

You run your browser and network in virtual machines and assume that they are compromised. You keep your sensitive files in an offline VM.

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#339

Post by thot_experiment »

I worry so much more about the dumb hardware locks and secure enclaves, OS features etc. I find the risk of a compromised machine to be so much less of an impact on my life than my computer telling me I am not allowed to do something.

This is my computer, let me tell it what to do. I hate how much of my time is wasted by all this security stuff. Infinitely more so than had been wasted by actual malware over the last decade or so.

I don't want to have to spend 10hrs figuring out how to hide root from Android pay every time something upgrades. Please just let me have root on devices I own.

Ever since I started doing a lot of work in C where all the foot guns are intentionally left in I've had my eyes opened to how beautiful and fun computers can be when they aren't your fucking adversary.

"Security" that can't be disabled by the device owner is tyranny.

Re: Ask HN: How do you trust that your personal machine is not compromised?

#340

Post by Nashooo »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #326
NikolaNovak wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The data being backed up is in tiers of importance or 'frequency of change', and based on this the backups are staggered, some daily, some weekly. I wouldn't often go a full week without checking some file or other, so I think I'd know pretty swiftly if I got infected with an encrypting ransomware virus - hopefully quickly enough to minimise damage. I also do off-site backups on occasion, so I could roll back to the…

Would you mind sharing abit more about your setup? I would want to set it up like this as well.
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