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LittleSnitch for Linux

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Re: LittleSnitch for Linux

#331

Post by vanc_cefepime »

moduspol wrote: post #314

I used Little Snitch on Mac a few years ago and liked it, though I wasn't a fan of how (necessarily) deep it had to be in the OS to work. It felt like one of those things where, the moment you have any kind of network connectivity issue, it's the first thing you need to disable to troubleshoot because it's the weirdest thing you're doing. I guess what I'd really like is a middleware box or something that I could put…

I am the same, used Little Snitch for a few years back in the late 2000s, I think like 2010 until a few years back when I moved fulltime to Linux. Back then, my parents had an iMac and I was the designated "IT" person to keep it running efficiently. My siblings had a bad habit of installing games and hack software on it for their games. I ended up purchasing a license and after the first few hours/days of configuring allow/block lists, it worked pretty well. It earned the label of "Little B*ch" from them since it would stop their gaming hacking apps from connecting and wrecking havoc. Eventually I learned to keep them on a standard user account and separate admin for installing software.

Long story you didn't ask for. Like I said, I haven't used Little Snitch in a while. I'll give this a whirl this weekend. What I have done over the past few years is run AdGuard Home on a min home server. This has helped keep ads undercontrol in our hoursehold and I have an easy "turn off adguard for 10 mins" in homeassistant for the wife so she can do some shopping online since it can occasionally break some sites, but overall they tolerate adguard and think it's a good middle ground. I have a few block lists, nothing too crazy or strict to avoid breaking most sites. On the desktops/laptops, they all run FireFox w uBlock origin.

Re: LittleSnitch for Linux

#332

Post by emj »

m132 wrote: post #217
fsflover wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else is this about? Debian repositories still contain no malware and if you install software exclusively from them, you'll be safe.

Run OpenSnitch for a while and you'll quickly realize how much of your system does phone home. Off the top of my head: - GNOME Shell (extension updates without a way to disable this, weather), - GNOME Calculator (currency exchange rates), - NetworkManager (periodic hotspot portal checks in most configurations), - GDB (debuginfod enabled by default), - Firefox (extension updates, push notifications, feature flags, tel…

People still care about these things on Debian. But as is said 20 years ago there was no need, because the default was to be sane.

Re: LittleSnitch for Linux

#334

Post by k4rnaj1k »

m132 wrote: post #217
fsflover wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else is this about? Debian repositories still contain no malware and if you install software exclusively from them, you'll be safe.

Run OpenSnitch for a while and you'll quickly realize how much of your system does phone home. Off the top of my head: - GNOME Shell (extension updates without a way to disable this, weather), - GNOME Calculator (currency exchange rates), - NetworkManager (periodic hotspot portal checks in most configurations), - GDB (debuginfod enabled by default), - Firefox (extension updates, push notifications, feature flags, tel…

Problem with updates is that without automatic ones, users could stay on outdated systems and possibly get hacked through some vulnerability(of which there are many). While on the other hand, having explicit confirmations for each network request would be crazy annoying.

Maybe some middleground of having the tool OP sent built-in would be a good option.

Re: LittleSnitch for Linux

#336

Post by balamatom »

lapcat wrote: post #301
heartbreak wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not even going to respond to this ridiculousness. Why is it ridiculous? If you have electronic access to something of value and broadcast that fact on the internet, you’re at risk of a physical attack. That’s not controversial? Companies make employees do training about this for a reason.

> If you have electronic access to something of value and broadcast that fact on the internet, you’re at risk of a physical attack. That’s not controversial? Companies make employees do training about this for a reason. You're talking as if all all "value" and all "risk" is equal, when they're definitely not. You can't equate a megacorporation with a little indie developer. Nobody cares about the latter. I am a softw…

Nobody that you know of.

Re: LittleSnitch for Linux

#337

Post by groguzt »

aucisson_masque wrote: post #210
Latty wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because no third party program has ever crashed on any other OS. Come on, this is an absurd comment. Linux has its issues, this is not a serious example of what is keeping normal people from using Linux as a desktop OS. Normal people are not installing the first release of a privacy networking tool that requires you to OK connections.

[flagged]

The take on flatpaks is such an uninformed one. DMGs on MacOS come with all the dependencies bundled in, which make them essentially just as big as the comparable flatpak (minus the shared runtime that gets installed once)

Re: LittleSnitch for Linux

#338

Post by zbikowski »

sgbeal wrote: post #251
Latty wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but also the original comment still stands: Linux desktop usage outside developers was so low that it was barely worth mentioning before, so even a small uptick like this is a serious change, and it's how bigger changes start. I definitely don't think it's even the likely outcome, but for Linux to get serious traction this is how it has to start: power users but not the traditional developer crowd start…

> Microsoft are certainly doing their best to push people away right now According to a speculative blog post by Eric S. Raymond in September 2020, Microsoft is literally moving towards replacing Windows' internals with Linux. Unfortunately, that post is now unreachable, but searching for "eric raymond article about windows being replaced with a linux kernel" finds many third-party references to it and summaries of i…

Last phase of the desktop wars? by Eric Raymond: https://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8764

Re: LittleSnitch for Linux

#339

Post by almostjazz »

dmos62 wrote: post #231
notThrowingAway wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The year of the Linux Desktop will always be $CURRENT_YEAR + 1

What do you call a fallacy where it is implied that the future will be like the past?

Problem of induction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

Re: LittleSnitch for Linux

#340

Post by spwa4 »

Of course, getting data uploads past little snitch is an exercise in triviality. For instance, using DNS tunneling. Sending requests to unrelated servers, ideally on AWS or some other cloud, so you have no idea at all who's behind the server and the firewall can't realistically block it, where the info can be retrieved by another party.
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