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A Guide to Not Getting Hacked

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Re: A Guide to Not Getting Hacked

#71

Post by davidscolgan »

folknor wrote: post #28
davidscolgan wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense. For some adblocking on steroids, put all of this in your hosts file: http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ 12,000 domains of ads and tracking blocked at the OS level!

I've used https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts for years now, and any close- and extended-family laptop or computer I touch gets it either silently or with some explanation if they ask me what I'm doing. Noone has ever complained. My only gripe is that I haven't written a cron-type update script for my extended family members who use Windows. Which means I only update it for them periodically. It's still better than…

Oi! Thanks for this. I am going to start using it from now on.

Re: A Guide to Not Getting Hacked

#72

Post by raarts »

tptacek wrote: post #53
ikeboy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is tor browser inside whonix good? Would you recommend a different browser inside of whonix instead?

If you use your browser for more than one site per execution, having your browser process owned up is devastating. Don't use Tor Browser.

What's the better alternative?

Re: A Guide to Not Getting Hacked

#73

Post by drngdds »

tptacek wrote: post #41

Everything that's in this piece that's true is on the Tech Solidarity guide. What isn't, is false. https://techsolidarity.org/resources/basic_security.htm In particular: * Do NOT install antivirus on your computers. Antivirus software is absurdly dangerous. The closest you'll come to benign AV is Microsoft's, but that's an asymptotic kind of safety. * Do NOT go out of your way to funnel your traffic through a commerc…

What's so bad about AV, and what makes Windows Defender an exception?

Re: A Guide to Not Getting Hacked

#74

Post by jlgaddis »

suyash wrote: post #33

"Camera access" - let's discuss this in more detail. So I am not convinced that I need to put that ugly piece of sticker onto my laptop camera. Is this really a big problem on Mac or no. Is there another alternative than putting some ugly sticker on a beautiful laptop?

If you don't want an "ugly sticker" on your laptop, you can get some nice laptop camera stickers [0] from the EFF. I have them on all of my laptops.

[0]: https://supporters.eff.org/shop/laptop-camera-cover-set

Re: A Guide to Not Getting Hacked

#75

Post by Santosh83 »

drngdds wrote: post #73
tptacek wrote: post #41

Everything that's in this piece that's true is on the Tech Solidarity guide. What isn't, is false. https://techsolidarity.org/resources/basic_security.htm In particular: * Do NOT install antivirus on your computers. Antivirus software is absurdly dangerous. The closest you'll come to benign AV is Microsoft's, but that's an asymptotic kind of safety. * Do NOT go out of your way to funnel your traffic through a commerc…

What's so bad about AV, and what makes Windows Defender an exception?

Windows Defender doesn't need to compete in the AV marketplace as it's bundled with every single copy of Windows, and also its maker is the same one who makes Windows, and therefore it is in MS's interests to make their AV light and unobtrusive (relatively). Other AV vendors compete fiercely with themselves and this leads to feature creep and bloat, as well as trying to grab the user's attention to sell their features and upgrades. All this leads to a subjectively poorer experience with non-MS AVs under Windows.

Re: A Guide to Not Getting Hacked

#76

Post by kuschku »

drdaeman wrote: post #63
kuschku wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The advice to use Tor browser is also terrible. Mozilla uses tracking scripts in Firefox, which in some versions (such as Firefox Beta, Developer Edition, and Nightly) can not even be disabled (If you go to about:config, you’ll notice that toolkit.telemetry.enabled is "locked:true"). So Mozilla themselves suggests that if you do not trust Google Analytics to hold up their agreements with Mozilla, you should instead…

Isn't it datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled (still unlocked and visible in the "options" -> "privacy & security" panel) that controls the upload, and toolkit.telemetry.enabled is only about whenever something is collected or not? Either way, thanks for the pointer. Didn't knew that setting was revamped.

> Isn't it datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled (still unlocked and visible in the "options" -> "privacy & security" panel) that controls the upload, and toolkit.telemetry.enabled is only about whenever something is collected or not?

I’m not actually sure – I’ve heard conflicting reports from Mozilla volunteers and employees in the past, but the general statement is that Beta, Dev, and Nightly contain tracking, and you opt into that when downloading, because the smallprint below the download button tells you that they will track you.

Re: A Guide to Not Getting Hacked

#77

Post by unicornporn »

Santosh83 wrote: post #75
drngdds wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so bad about AV, and what makes Windows Defender an exception?

Windows Defender doesn't need to compete in the AV marketplace as it's bundled with every single copy of Windows, and also its maker is the same one who makes Windows, and therefore it is in MS's interests to make their AV light and unobtrusive (relatively). Other AV vendors compete fiercely with themselves and this leads to feature creep and bloat, as well as trying to grab the user's attention to sell their feature…

So it's a question of UX, not security?

Re: A Guide to Not Getting Hacked

#78

Post by teamhappy »

unicornporn wrote: post #77
Santosh83 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows Defender doesn't need to compete in the AV marketplace as it's bundled with every single copy of Windows, and also its maker is the same one who makes Windows, and therefore it is in MS's interests to make their AV light and unobtrusive (relatively). Other AV vendors compete fiercely with themselves and this leads to feature creep and bloat, as well as trying to grab the user's attention to sell their feature…

So it's a question of UX, not security?

No, it's a question of security. AVs are huge and therefore significantly increase the attack surface. They also auto-update all the time which means your computer now talks to one more update server that can be compromised.

Windows Defender is relatively small, doesn't really have any features or fancy UI and updates come from the same servers that your OS updates come from (presumably). That's about as close as you can get to not making it worse by installing an AV.

Re: A Guide to Not Getting Hacked

#79

Post by unicornporn »

folknor wrote: post #30
foodstances wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because an iPhone is easy to use for the vast majority of people and OpenBSD is not.

I've installed Xfce/Gnome/Mate on new computers for senior family members and they don't even notice half the time. They just think it's a new version of Windows or Mac. In age ranges from 40-72+. The "vast majority" you speak of probably mostly use a web browser and a mail client, so their interactions with the actual OS are minimal. Sometimes I get calls about digital cameras (or phones nowadays), so then I either…

Probably fine until they try to install Spotify, or some other life critical piece of software.

Re: A Guide to Not Getting Hacked

#80

Post by _b8r0 »

suyash wrote: post #37
_b8r0 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grandpa should probably use a chromebook. It's cheap, it's not as targeted as windows systems, and doesn't need AV. On the downside he'll be locked into the Google ecosystem, but for his needs that might not be so much of a problem. If it becomes a problem, GalliumOS is actually good enough in most cases to use as a daily driver on a Chromebook.

Grandpa will be better off with an iPad since iPad has way more apps than Chromebook and is more intuitive and user friendly than Android or Chromebook. iPad can can work offline, more portable and convenient to read (pinch and zoom etc) and to write, type with a keyboard that you can connect or touch type on screen. Not to mention Apple will protect his privacy more than Google will.

I see where you're coming from and my (then 76 year old) Gran loved using my iPad mini, but she found the screen too small and a full sized iPad too heavy to hold. She did like her iPhone, but would still routinely send random messages to the wrong person.

She would've also found the jump from iOS 10 to iOS 11 confusing, as she did from XP to Windows 8.1.

I'm only posting this because I went down the exact route you mentioned for exactly the same reasons and it backfired spectacularly, and expensively.

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