Prism Break • Hacker News Board

Re: Prism Break

#11

Post by dmix » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 3:34 AM UTC

Surprised Arch Linux [1] isn't listed. It's probably one of the most secure distros by limiting the installed packages to a bare minimum. Combine that with App Armour (or SELinux designed by the NSA) with a firewall and basic network monitoring to protect against rootkits. Plus always-on VPN, dm-crypted harddrive, noscript etc.

NSA also released SEAndroid [2] which hardens Android significantly. It's included preinstalled w/ Samsung S4. Although still not very popular and I'm sure not heavily code-reviewed.

[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way

[2] http://selinuxproject.org/page/SEAndroid

Re: Prism Break

#12

Post by MarkHarmon » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 3:38 AM UTC

Nice resource, thanks for posting. It would be really cool to have some kind of ratings and reviews for each service/app listed. Maybe an official review/rating and then user contributed.

Re: Prism Break

#13

Post by dfc » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 3:39 AM UTC

I really do not understand the thought process behind this page:

Why is chromium not listed as a free alternative to Chrome/IE/Safari?

What components of DDG are partly proprietary and which are not? (not a criticism of DDG just this page) What is a "free search engine" anyway?

Why are Firefox and Thunderbird listed alongside Iceweasel and Icedove?

How do you list OpenNIC if they have not adopted an official privacy/anonymization policy?

Speaking of official privacy policies; I see that you tried to load /analytics/piwik.js. Where is the privacy policy for prism-break?

Re: Prism Break

#14

Post by snitko » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 3:40 AM UTC

comex wrote: post #8

Several of these suggestions seem somewhat disingenuous - e.g. many of them to be about free software more than actual concerns about tracking, as reflected in the labels "Proprietary" and "Free alternatives". In particular: - None of the proprietary browsers will track you - well, beyond what's specified in the privacy policy. Two of the alternatives are Tor applications, but the other two are Firefox (which provide…

> None of the proprietary browsers will track you.

Can you elaborate a bit on this, how do you know they won't? My default assumption is that anything I can't see the source code of and compile myself is compromised.

Re: Prism Break

#15

Post by finnn » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 3:44 AM UTC

jimworm wrote: post #6

Needs more emphasis that the left column is the one to avoid.

Seems like the lack of links in that column makes it pretty obvious

Re: Prism Break

#16

Post by azakai » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 3:46 AM UTC

comex wrote: post #8

Several of these suggestions seem somewhat disingenuous - e.g. many of them to be about free software more than actual concerns about tracking, as reflected in the labels "Proprietary" and "Free alternatives". In particular: - None of the proprietary browsers will track you - well, beyond what's specified in the privacy policy. Two of the alternatives are Tor applications, but the other two are Firefox (which provide…

> Several of these suggestions seem somewhat disingenuous - e.g. many of them to be about free software more than actual concerns about tracking [..] None of the proprietary browsers will track you.

No, these issues are very much related. It is the very nature of proprietary software that you cannot inspect and modify it, so you cannot know if it will track you or not, and cannot fix things if you are.

(Inspecting outgoing traffic is helpful, but unless you monitor all activity all the time, and make the effort to actually understand every single bit that is transmitted, you can't be certain.)

Furthermore, some of these browsers explicitly do track you. For example, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari provide ways to sync your bookmarks, all of which track you - and some of them encourage you to do this, for example if you do not log in to Chrome it says "you're missing out". (Firefox also has a sync service, but it is encrypted on the client, so the server cannot read the information, and you can't be tracked.)

Re: Prism Break

#17

Post by colanderman » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 3:48 AM UTC

snitko wrote: post #14

comex wrote: post #8

Several of these suggestions seem somewhat disingenuous - e.g. many of them to be about free software more than actual concerns about tracking, as reflected in the labels "Proprietary" and "Free alternatives". In particular: - None of the proprietary browsers will track you - well, beyond what's specified in the privacy policy. Two of the alternatives are Tor applications, but the other two are Firefox (which provide…

> None of the proprietary browsers will track you. Can you elaborate a bit on this, how do you know they won't? My default assumption is that anything I can't see the source code of and compile myself is compromised.

You can always run Wireshark to see if/when they phone home.

Re: Prism Break

#18

Post by throwit1979 » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 3:49 AM UTC

snitko wrote: post #14

comex wrote: post #8

Several of these suggestions seem somewhat disingenuous - e.g. many of them to be about free software more than actual concerns about tracking, as reflected in the labels "Proprietary" and "Free alternatives". In particular: - None of the proprietary browsers will track you - well, beyond what's specified in the privacy policy. Two of the alternatives are Tor applications, but the other two are Firefox (which provide…

> None of the proprietary browsers will track you. Can you elaborate a bit on this, how do you know they won't? My default assumption is that anything I can't see the source code of and compile myself is compromised.

Sociologically: there is a surprisingly large contingent of people who believe that if a company makes a claim, it's the God's honest Truth. The OP may not necessarily fall into this camp.

Technically: if the browsers were somehow phoning home, even if the data were highly fuzzed, I'm sure there would be guys like tpatcek who would manage to detail, if not the content of the tracking, at least the amount of data sent and the targets. I don't recall there being such a scandal in recent memory.

Re: Prism Break

#19

Post by comex » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 3:52 AM UTC

azakai wrote: post #16

comex wrote: post #8

Several of these suggestions seem somewhat disingenuous - e.g. many of them to be about free software more than actual concerns about tracking, as reflected in the labels "Proprietary" and "Free alternatives". In particular: - None of the proprietary browsers will track you - well, beyond what's specified in the privacy policy. Two of the alternatives are Tor applications, but the other two are Firefox (which provide…

> Several of these suggestions seem somewhat disingenuous - e.g. many of them to be about free software more than actual concerns about tracking [..] None of the proprietary browsers will track you. No, these issues are very much related. It is the very nature of proprietary software that you cannot inspect and modify it, so you cannot know if it will track you or not, and cannot fix things if you are. (Inspecting ou…

Although proprietary software may be easier for a government to compel to be modified to add tracking, it still runs the risk of being noticed in most reasonable cases, and there is in fact no evidence that any Western government is doing any such thing. It does increase the chance that you are being tracked due to incompetence, but I don't think this is particularly likely for such well-known software.

True, there is a difference with the bookmark sync - I do not think it is valid to discount a browser entirely based on this.

Re: Prism Break

#20

Post by tptacek » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 3:52 AM UTC

If you're going to continue using Google Mail, it's a dumb idea to deliberately switch away from Chrome. The connection between Gmail and Chrome is among the more carefully guarded TLS connections on the Internet.