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It's hard to believe there wasn't a credible little snitch like application for Linux yet. Even more why Objective Development themselves did not try to port th

It's hard to believe there wasn't a credible little snitch like application for Linux yet. Even more why Objective Development themselves did not try to port their very successful product to other platforms. I hope opensnitch gets some community love.

mi100hael 10y ago
I suspect most Linux users just use iptables and/or /etc/hosts. That's what I've done since making the switch from Mac.
- annnnd 10y ago
  Curious: how do you detect that some plugin is phoning home with iptables? Especially if it is cleverly written to only do it when there is lots of other traffic?
  - bostand 10y ago
    Apparmor/ selinux?
  - notalaser 10y ago
    You can use the owner extension: https://www.frozentux.net/iptables-tutorial/iptables-tutorial.html#OWNERMATCH https://www.frozentux.net/iptables-tutorial/iptables-tutoria... , which can filter based on the PID of the process which created the packets. But what we generally do is, you know, not run plugins that phone home :). Edit: I just looked on a Linux machine - things have changed a little. That used to be my go-to document for iptables, which is why I referred you to it. You probably want to consult something more up-to-date. In any case: iptables can do filtering based on who created the packets. Even later edit: it probably goes without saying, but just in case -- this solves only half the problem, because it can only identify the process based on its PID. This makes it pretty trivial to overcome PID-based rules. The usual solution, of course, was to filter based on UID and run the program under a separate account. I don't know if this got solved in the meantime, I haven't used iptables in a while now.
- overcast 10y ago
  I suspect most Linux users, don't even know what iptables is. It's certainly not a no brainer process, or even made prevalent.
coldtea 10y ago
>It's hard to believe there wasn't a credible little snitch like application for Linux yet. Why? That's the case for most major proprietary UI apps -- open source versions are usually subpar in several ways (not because of some inherent issue with open source as a license, but because of time constraints, unglamorous work, not enough UX/UI volunteers, no top/down vision, etc). Where they do get the upper hand is usually in offering more configurability. >Even more why Objective Development themselves did not try to port their very successful product to other platforms. For Windows it might make sense, but which other platforms would they port to? Linux desktop users are few and far between (1/5 to 1/10 of Mac users), and there's not much of a paid software market.
peterwwillis 10y ago
Linux didn't really have software that "phoned home" in the past. Most of the software was open source, so you could literally look inside it to see if it would ever "phone home". But now proprietary software for Linux is getting more popular, and I guess this makes people paranoid.

mi100hael 10y ago

I suspect most Linux users just use iptables and/or /etc/hosts. That's what I've done since making the switch from Mac.

annnnd 10y ago
Curious: how do you detect that some plugin is phoning home with iptables? Especially if it is cleverly written to only do it when there is lots of other traffic?
- bostand 10y ago
  Apparmor/ selinux?
- notalaser 10y ago
  You can use the owner extension: https://www.frozentux.net/iptables-tutorial/iptables-tutorial.html#OWNERMATCH https://www.frozentux.net/iptables-tutorial/iptables-tutoria... , which can filter based on the PID of the process which created the packets. But what we generally do is, you know, not run plugins that phone home :). Edit: I just looked on a Linux machine - things have changed a little. That used to be my go-to document for iptables, which is why I referred you to it. You probably want to consult something more up-to-date. In any case: iptables can do filtering based on who created the packets. Even later edit: it probably goes without saying, but just in case -- this solves only half the problem, because it can only identify the process based on its PID. This makes it pretty trivial to overcome PID-based rules. The usual solution, of course, was to filter based on UID and run the program under a separate account. I don't know if this got solved in the meantime, I haven't used iptables in a while now.
overcast 10y ago
I suspect most Linux users, don't even know what iptables is. It's certainly not a no brainer process, or even made prevalent.

coldtea 10y ago

>It's hard to believe there wasn't a credible little snitch like application for Linux yet. Why? That's the case for most major proprietary UI apps -- open source versions are usually subpar in several ways (not because of some inherent issue with open source as a license, but because of time constraints, unglamorous work, not enough UX/UI volunteers, no top/down vision, etc). Where they do get the upper hand is usually in offering more configurability. >Even more why Objective Development themselves did not try to port their very successful product to other platforms. For Windows it might make sense, but which other platforms would they port to? Linux desktop users are few and far between (1/5 to 1/10 of Mac users), and there's not much of a paid software market.

peterwwillis 10y ago

Linux didn't really have software that "phoned home" in the past. Most of the software was open source, so you could literally look inside it to see if it would ever "phone home". But now proprietary software for Linux is getting more popular, and I guess this makes people paranoid.