15 ms·
Fun with Red Star OS
- pndy 5y agoFlorian Grunow and Niklaus Schiess, Lifting the Fog on Red Star OS - A deep dive into the surveillance features of North Korea's operating system [1] [1] - https://youtu.be/8LGDM9exlZw https://youtu.be/8LGDM9exlZw The bit more detailed view, I'd say
- bierjunge 5y agoIf somebody wants to give it a try: https://securedl.cdn.chip.de/downloads/30157394/redstar_desktop3.0_sign.iso https://securedl.cdn.chip.de/downloads/30157394/redstar_desk... (hosted by chip.de, a german low quality "IT" news site/magazine). 4.0 is released, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Ping me if you have it!
- smoldesu 5y agoIf you're familiar with the classic "Windows Destruction" series, you'll be pleased to hear that there is also a fairly recent Red Star Destruction entry as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9BOYttRtN0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9BOYttRtN0
- vadfa 5y agoOff-topic: the font in this blog renders very poorly. I know the solution is to disable remote fonts in ublock origin, but that means that websites that use fonts to show icons will not work properly. Has anybody found a solution?
- RicoElectrico 5y agoI can also see it. It must be a Firefox bug. Reduce zoom to whatever it takes to counter your DPI scaling.
- capableweb 5y agoNot sure what you mean with "renders very poorly", is it just the font that doesn't look good for you or seems like a bug? This is how it looks for me on Firefox/Ubuntu: https://imgur.com/a/WFx2okh https://imgur.com/a/WFx2okh Seems fine, although I'd probably choose a different font myself.
- GekkePrutser 5y agoThey probably use it mostly in Korean anyway so I don't think the English character rendering matters very much to them. After all they only have access to a national "intranet" which will probably also be in Korean. Ps: yes a lot of assumptions here but it's North Korea :)
- stordoff 5y agoThis is what it looks like for me (Chrome/Windows 10): https://i.ibb.co/LgDwp8x/redstar.png https://i.ibb.co/LgDwp8x/redstar.png Readable, but looks odd - things like the crossbars on ts look too heavy. Zooming in slightly clears it up: https://i.ibb.co/5L6R7MF/redstar2.png https://i.ibb.co/5L6R7MF/redstar2.png
- 0des 5y ago> Has anybody found a solution? Frontend designers should stop using remote fonts, or fonts at all, for icons.
- capableweb 5y agoAnd all bad programmers should stop being bad programmers, easy. Maybe if you don't have something useful to add to the conversation, you should refrain from adding anything at all.
- vadfa 5y agoFound the designer.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- capableweb 5y agolol, I'm as far away as a designer as you can be, but thanks for the laugh :)
- marcodiego 5y ago"The system is absolutely network-silent except when you actively do something that requires network access, like using the browser. It does not call the mothership, not for updates, not for telemetry, not to let Kim Jong Un know the status of your internal organs. Spoiler, he doesn’t give a fuck about your hentai porn. " Take that, Microsoft!
- 404mm 5y agoI recall reading a different “review” a few years back and they found it calling back home.
- danielvaughn 5y agoIn a former job, I had to inspect network traffic on my mac. So I install Charles, open it up, and start looking around. I was astounded how much network activity is going on that I had no idea about.
- bo1024 5y agoIs it really necessary to run third-party javascript that "checks my browser" (collects information about me?) before letting me read the article?
- jeroenhd 5y agoThe usual method is to let Cloudflare collect that data passively, I like the honesty of letting the user see the DDoS protection in action better. At least this website doesn't require a captcha when you're visiting through TOR, that's better than most websites behind DDoS protection.
- darkcha0s 5y agoLike most of the modern web, yes.
- macksd 5y agoWas that not a proxy doing DDoS protection?
- Fnoord 5y agohttps://archive.md/1iqOG https://archive.md/1iqOG
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- echelon 5y agoCloudflare runs DDoS protection against a surprisingly many sites now. Often you don't even see the "checking your browser" screen, it just happens passively. While individual authors and publishers benefit substantially (caching, anti-DDoS, etc.), this is a huge net loss for the internet. It essentially entrenches Google and the rest of MAGMA as the forever winners of spidering the web. If you try to spin up your own crawler, you'll get hit by this bullshit. It's becoming impossible to bootstrap now.
- solarkraft 5y agoOf course this version is now super-outdated. Are there any new versions available?
- netsec_burn 5y agoRed Star 4.0 (2017). Good luck finding it, I haven't.
- gjsman-1000 5y agoSo far, even though we know Red Star 4 exists and has for years now, it's very elusive with (AFAIK) no disc images yet found. I think that there was a rumor that it was FreeBSD based instead of Linux based but don't quote me on that.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- gjsman-1000 5y agoAccording to Wikipedia, a South Korean magazine got a copy, but they never uploaded the disc images. However, they did takes a few screenshots. Red Star OS 4 is still MacOS-inspired but with a little more modern of a Mac look - think Mavericks (Red Star OS 3 inspiration) -> Yosemite (Red Star OS 4.0 inspiration). With a touch of Chrome OS and GNOME in there for good measure. https://www.nkeconomy.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=3191 https://www.nkeconomy.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=3191 https://www.nkeconomy.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=3213 https://www.nkeconomy.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=3213 https://www.nkeconomy.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=3292 https://www.nkeconomy.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=3292
- koffiedrinker 5y agoDid they take photos of their screen because it was running on a computer they didn't own or did they really have access to the ISOs (and for some reason didn't take screenshots)?
- iJohnDoe 5y agoSeems more privacy focused than Microsoft and Apple? So sad to even think that. Also, remember that China wouldn’t use Windows 10 due to how invasive the telemetry is unless Microsoft gave them a special version just for China. I’m not saying that NK or China are privacy focused. It seems like even the spies don’t like to be spied on.
- sh0 5y agoAs far as I remember the Red Star kernel has a module which modifies all opened images and documents by appending a device fingerprint to the file. In fact it is a chain of fingerprints to trace where the file has been. So not exactly 'privacy focused'.
- trasz 5y ago[citation needed]. That would break a whole lot of things, and the kernel would be a silly place to implement it.
- throwaway4good 5y agoChina also insisted on and got its own version of the trusted platform module, a chip that is present on all pcs that can run windows. Rather than ridiculing what countries such as China or North Korea do in the name of national security, we tech people should pay strict attention as here are hints on how our own daily technology is being surveilled and controlled.
- Iolaum 5y agoWoW I didn't know about this, Here's a quick results about TPM's not being available in China for people interested in this: https://www.makeuseof.com/why-chinese-users-cant-upgrade-windows-11/ https://www.makeuseof.com/why-chinese-users-cant-upgrade-win...
- sudosysgen 5y agoTPMs are also controlled in Russia IIRC.
- freeflight 5y agoA bit older but quite relevant and entertaining; "Florian Grunow, Niklaus Schiess: Lifting the Fog on Red Star OS", from the 2015 Chaos Computer Congress. https://youtu.be/8LGDM9exlZw https://youtu.be/8LGDM9exlZw
- oyebenny 5y agoHow do I get a copy of the any of the RedStar OS distro?
- boomboomsubban 5y agoI have no clue where you get a copy provided by North Korea, but it's easy to find online. On the Internet Archive for example https://archive.org/details/RedStarOS https://archive.org/details/RedStarOS
- jeroenhd 5y ago> Spoiler, he doesn’t give a fuck about your hentai porn. These operating systems do actually contain code that add a signature belonging to your install of the machine to pictures and video files, so be wary if spreading your hentai porn in Kim's country because it can be traced back to you. That said, there's a lot of panic about fears of having it reach out across the internet and infect your entire network without any real basis. If you're comfortable with running Windows 11,you're already sharing more data than the DPRK could possibly want to extract from you, only the DPRK can't use that data and the Five Eyes most likely can. The Glorious Leader liked his Macbook so he ordered his lackeys to build North Korea their own Macbooks with a shitty font and tracking submitted to their services instead it Apple's.
- simonebrunozzi 5y ago> add a signature belonging to your install of the machine to pictures and video files But why?
- sodality2 5y ago> > add a signature belonging to your install of the machine to pictures and video files > But why? Any media negative about the regime can be traced back to its source so they can be suicided. edit, more specific info from https://www.reuters.com/article/northkorea-computers-idUSKBN0UA0GF20151227 https://www.reuters.com/article/northkorea-computers-idUSKBN...: >Red Star also addresses a more pressing concern: cracking down on the growing underground exchange of foreign movies, music and writing. >Illegal media is usually passed from person-to-person in North Korea using USB sticks and microSD cards, making it hard for the government to track where they come from. >Red Star tackles this by tagging, or watermarking, every document or media file on a computer or on any USB stick connected to it. That means that any file could be traced back to anyone who had previously opened or created the file.
- BuildTheRobots 5y agoThe KGB used to require all typewriters to be registered, so they could identify the authors of anything they found objectionable. Being able to track who produced an image that's doing the rounds spreading "propaganda" seems like it adds a lot of value (from an authoritarian point of view, at least).
- steviedotboston 5y agothis always looked surprisingly well polished to me.
- emteycz 5y agoWhy is it surprising that the top 1% programmers of an entire country (many of them probably with western education) can produce quality software when put under deadly threat?
- imwillofficial 5y agoThe assumes that’s how they are motivated. We also know quality suffers with a gun to your head. They are far more likely to produce quality work by patriotism or material rewards.
- emteycz 5y agoI don't think they had a gun to their head literally, or that the threat was voiced - but IMHO not many of them would defy the order and definitely would not try to make the project slow down or fail, due to the implied threat of "disappearance". > They are far more likely to produce quality work by patriotism or material rewards. Is that really what you feel as a programmer that has to take free and open software and make it closed and spying while pretending it was your country that made the entire OS and apps and it's not just a rebrand? I can agree with the material rewards. DPRK can probably make the best offers - maybe they're not paying in USD but most probably still enough to have a house/skyscraper apartment, servants, personal chef and driver, etc.
- imwillofficial 5y agoI have done far far worse in the name of God and Country.
- thriftwy 5y agoI don't think that any programmers in the DPRK will have access to western education. People who do are many, many tiers up.
- pndy 5y agohttps://youtu.be/8LGDM9exlZw https://youtu.be/8LGDM9exlZw - Florian Grunow and Niklaus Schiess, Lifting the Fog on Red Star OS - A deep dive into the surveillance features of North Korea's operating system The bit more detailed view, I'd say
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pndy 5y agoFlorian Grunow and Niklaus Schiess, Lifting the Fog on Red Star OS - A deep dive into the surveillance features of North Korea's operating system [1] [1] - https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7174-lifting_the_fog_on_red_star_os# https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7174-lifting_the_fog_on_red_star... (it's also available on YT which for some reason I couldn't link in this comment - perhaps some anti-spam measurment?) The bit more detailed view, I'd say
- eatbitseveryday 5y agoYou have two other top-level comments with the same YouTube URL.
- emptyparadise 5y agoThat's a solid looking file manager. Finder for Linux!?
- teddyh 5y agoImage caption says “KFinder”.
- BruceEel 5y agoPurely based on the screenshots, I'd say that as UI design, theming and 'chrome' go, I'll take this over my current macOS (Big Sur) any day...
- dkdbejwi383 5y agoYou could just roll back to Snow Leopard
- BruceEel 5y agoyou mention it by name, the best macOS version ever (IMHO.)
- zbonk 5y agoCan someone please see the "view source" of this page and tell me if what I'm seeing is malware? I'm seeing a LOT of scary-looking UNIX code (PID, root, IPs etc.)there that doesn't appear on the site, is my computer now compromised?
- noslot 5y agoThey're hidden behind expand elements: View the original iptables rules
- niyaven 5y agoNothing to worry about, this is actually on the site. However the output is collapsed by default because it's very long. CTRL+F "View the original iptables rules" and click it, you will see what you saw in the source.
- zbonk 5y agoTHANKS! I was literally about to format my entire computer and hard-reset my router. I freaked out badly. I really shouldn't be snorting DMT all day like this while browsing. You saved me.
- nottorp 5y ago> However the output is collapsed by default because it's very long. Top poster did not read the article :)
- vilvo 5y agoWhat is UnBangUI?
- lifthrasiir 5y agoIt's actually UnBangUl (은방울, lit. silver bell) with a lowercase L and a quick search shows that it is a musical score software, possibly a fork of MuseScore.
- ttz 5y agoanyone know how get that miller column KFinder app outside of installing RedStar? Don't actually think anything exists like that for Linux (minus Elementary File Manager)
- qwerty456127 5y agoThis looks fantastic! I would migrate a ~hundred PCs to this if it had relevant drivers/fixes and no communist backdoors. Honestly, I thought it's just a crappy rebrand of some old unpolished version of a major Linux distro, sort of "chinese" in the worst sense of the word. Apparently I was wrong and I'm astonished.