Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system • Hacker News Board

Re: Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system

#21

Post by NegativeK » Mon, Jan 13, 2025, 12:22 AM UTC

irundebian wrote: post #3

Have used it for several months as my daily OS and dropped it because of bad graphics performance (only software rendering supported, many frame drops when watching HD videos on YT) and bad battery management. Due to software rendering the overall systems perfmance also dropped. So I cannot recommend it for people with high requirements on graphics and battery duration. Besides that it was an interesting and good exp…

Given the tendency for people to lower their unknowingly compromise their security for the sake of convenience, I can understand why a project wouldn't do that. Knowingly is different and is what you're requesting -- it's when someone is following some Stack Overflow post or some such and doesn't have the training (similarly with the SO commenter, potentially) to know the implications.

It kind of feels like a tradeoff between protecting users who are critically in need of something like Qubes or expanding its reach to people who are less at risk and won't use it if it's too inconvenient.

Re: Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system

#22

Post by andy_ppp » Mon, Jan 13, 2025, 12:23 AM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #2

I would say, a little more hesitantly, that it deeply depends on what you are doing. When interacting remotely with untrusted services, apps, or documents, Qubes cannot be beaten. However, if I was afraid of my laptop getting attacked with an evil maid attack, I’m sticking with my Mac, Secure Boot, and FileVault; so that my Lock Screen is less likely to be patched against me. If I’m afraid of persistent malware, I wa…

How stupid, if you’re going to send bomb threats do it from someone else’s computer…

Re: Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system

#23

Post by mjg59 » Mon, Jan 13, 2025, 12:24 AM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #2

I would say, a little more hesitantly, that it deeply depends on what you are doing. When interacting remotely with untrusted services, apps, or documents, Qubes cannot be beaten. However, if I was afraid of my laptop getting attacked with an evil maid attack, I’m sticking with my Mac, Secure Boot, and FileVault; so that my Lock Screen is less likely to be patched against me. If I’m afraid of persistent malware, I wa…

It's probably worth mentioning that secure boot is trivially circumventable given physical access on any Intel Mac (including T2 Macs), so you want at least an M1 to feel safer here

Re: Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system

#24

Post by dang » Mon, Jan 13, 2025, 12:27 AM UTC

Related. Others?

Converting untrusted PDFs into trusted ones: The Qubes Way (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42401904 - Dec 2024 (45 comments)

Why one would use Qubes OS? (2023) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42200987 - Nov 2024 (16 comments)

Counter argument against QubesOS more secure by being a type 1 hypervisor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41401318 - Aug 2024 (1 comment)

Qubes OS 4.2.2 has been released - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40959109 - July 2024 (5 comments)

Working with Qubes OS at the Guardian - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39949882 - April 2024 (74 comments)

Qubes OS 4.2.1 has been released - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39833245 - March 2024 (11 comments)

A modest update to Qubes OS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39490264 - Feb 2024 (31 comments)

Qubes OS 4.2.0 has been released - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38690597 - Dec 2023 (21 comments)

QubesOS – A reasonably secure operating system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36684946 - July 2023 (135 comments)

Qubes OS 4.2-rc1 is available for testing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36178205 - June 2023 (3 comments)

New user guide: How to organize your qubes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33396604 - Oct 2022 (15 comments)

Opsec considerations when using WiFi - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32148920 - July 2022 (2 comments)

What Is Qubes OS? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32036899 - July 2022 (82 comments)

Automated OS testing on physical laptops - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31281107 - May 2022 (4 comments)

Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30776103 - March 2022 (97 comments)

Qubes OS 4.1.0 has been released - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30215210 - Feb 2022 (1 comment)

Ask HN: Qubes OS or just separate VMs for separating work and private files? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29537961 - Dec 2021 (6 comments)

Qubes OS 4.1-rc1 has been released - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28856957 - Oct 2021 (5 comments)

Qubes OS 4.0 has been released - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16699900 - March 2018 (39 comments)

Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15734416 - Nov 2017 (144 comments)

Reasonably Secure Computing in the Decentralized World - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15566563 - Oct 2017 (44 comments)

Toward a Reasonably Secure Laptop - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14743238 - July 2017 (100 comments)

“Paranoid Mode” Compromise Recovery on Qubes OS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14218504 - April 2017 (14 comments)

Qubes OS Begins Commercialization and Community Funding Efforts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13069615 - Nov 2016 (24 comments)

Qubes OS 3.2 has been released - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12604417 - Sept 2016 (30 comments)

Security challenges for the Qubes build process - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11801093 - May 2016 (17 comments)

Qubes OS 3.1 has been released - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11260857 - March 2016 (44 comments)

Converting untrusted PDFs into trusted ones: The Qubes Way (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10538888 - Nov 2015 (5 comments)

Intel x86 considered harmful – survey of attacks against x86 over last 10 years - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10458318 - Oct 2015 (169 comments)

Qubes – Secure Desktop OS Using Security by Compartmentalization - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8428453 - Oct 2014 (49 comments)

Introducing Qubes 1.0 ("a stable and reasonably secure desktop OS") - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4472403 - Sept 2012 (59 comments)

Qubes: an open source OS with strong security for desktop computing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2645170 - June 2011 (16 comments)

Review: Qubes OS Beta 1 — a new and refreshing approach to system security - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2504274 - May 2011 (1 comment)

The Linux Security Circus: On GUI isolation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2477667 - April 2011 (47 comments)

Qubes Beta 1 has been released (strong desktop security OS) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2439096 - April 2011 (3 comments)

Qubes Architecture - actual security-oriented OS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1796384 - Oct 2010 (1 comment)

Open source Qubes OS is ultra secure - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1249857 - April 2010 (7 comments)

Introducing Qubes OS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1246990 - April 2010 (20 comments)

Re: Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system

#25

Post by Dalewyn » Mon, Jan 13, 2025, 12:29 AM UTC

irundebian wrote: post #3

Have used it for several months as my daily OS and dropped it because of bad graphics performance (only software rendering supported, many frame drops when watching HD videos on YT) and bad battery management. Due to software rendering the overall systems perfmance also dropped. So I cannot recommend it for people with high requirements on graphics and battery duration. Besides that it was an interesting and good exp…

>bad graphics performance (only software rendering supported, many frame drops when watching HD videos on YT)

It might help if you used a computer with CPU horsepower that actually exists.

And in case this sounded facetious, any reasonable CPU from the past 15 years can handle software decoding of high resolution video just fine.

This all said however, if you do actually need full use of all hardware resources then being constrained to software is certainly a factor worth considering.

Re: Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system

#26

Post by chefandy » Mon, Jan 13, 2025, 12:29 AM UTC

behnamoh wrote: post #7

A simple screenshot of the OS environment would have been nice. But generally, I don't think people adopt operating systems just by seeing new recommendations on Hacker News or different forums. Most people have settled on macOS and then Linux and then Windows. and within the Linux ecosystem most people just use Ubuntu or Fedora and that's it. I don't see anyone using these other esoteric operating systems as a daily…

I don’t think qubes is targeted at mainstream users— even mainstream developers— and I don’t think something has to be targeted at the mainstream to be interesting, especially here. There are probably a lot of people here that won’t ever use it that will still find the idea and ethos interesting.

Re: Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system

#27

Post by armSixtyFour » Mon, Jan 13, 2025, 12:30 AM UTC

zvmaz wrote: post #6

With zero-click exploits that we certainly do not know of, Qubes OS offers some peace of mind.

Unless there's a zero day in Xen in which case the entire security model falls apart. With all these cloud providers using Xen, I have no doubt that there's already one out there.

Re: Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system

#28

Post by Dalewyn » Mon, Jan 13, 2025, 12:32 AM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #2

I would say, a little more hesitantly, that it deeply depends on what you are doing. When interacting remotely with untrusted services, apps, or documents, Qubes cannot be beaten. However, if I was afraid of my laptop getting attacked with an evil maid attack, I’m sticking with my Mac, Secure Boot, and FileVault; so that my Lock Screen is less likely to be patched against me. If I’m afraid of persistent malware, I wa…

There's an age old saying in Japan that if you want to hide a tree you should do so in a forest.

Re: Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system

#29

Post by NathanielK » Mon, Jan 13, 2025, 12:34 AM UTC

oswalk wrote: post #20

Crontab wrote: post #15

Even though I never used Qubes OS I used to really enjoy Joanna Rutkowska's passion for it. Other women who's computing enthusiasm I enjoyed was Jessie Frazelle's writing and speaking about running everything in Docker on her laptop and Sacha Chua's love for Emacs.

[flagged]

Why do you think you need to clarify that?

Re: Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system

#30

Post by Fnoord » Mon, Jan 13, 2025, 12:35 AM UTC

Crontab wrote: post #15

Even though I never used Qubes OS I used to really enjoy Joanna Rutkowska's passion for it. Other women who's computing enthusiasm I enjoyed was Jessie Frazelle's writing and speaking about running everything in Docker on her laptop and Sacha Chua's love for Emacs.

There's a lot of awesome females in the infosec community. Check out the podcast Darknet Diaries for a glimpse. Some of the coolest red teaming podcasts were (IMO) with women.

In this context, I'd like to mention Dr. Melanie Rieback. She is 'the CEO/Co-founder of Radically Open Security, the world’s first non-profit computer security consultancy company.' Previously in the 00's known for her research in RFID security.

Or have a look at hack conferences such as recently 38C3.