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How is an anonymous, non-attributable, non-verifiable statement, from a company trying to sell you a product, worth anything? Why assume it's true when it is so

How is an anonymous, non-attributable, non-verifiable statement, from a company trying to sell you a product, worth anything? Why assume it's true when it is so contrary to even basic common sense, for anyone who has ever stood up a LAMP stack?

sodality2 4y ago
I don't mean to assume it's true to validate their advertising. For the sake of argument, if a server uses only a RAM disk, is that an improvement over having disks? Of course a network can still have sneaky equipment in between but that is still possible without RAM disks, so is it not beneficial to have a RAM disk? Please note that I am not arguing in favor of their advertising or to say that it is successfully avoiding surveillance. But, do you believe that no-disk boot, assuming it actually takes place, is a positive thing, or not? I admit I misconstrued your original comment to be a criticism of the technology rather than the fact that this VPN company advertises as such. Nonetheless I do think no-disk-boot is not useless as a technology and if you have any disagreement I would love to hear it, as someone who uses a VPN (not expressVPN) that says they use the same setup.
- 0daystock 4y ago
  It depends entirely on the threat model. If three-letter agencies are the adversary, moving logging to RAM is unlikely to be a meaningful deterrent - they probably already have a root shell or direct access to the VM hypervisor. So if it doesn't protect against nation states, whom are we defending against? Another law enforcement agency raiding the server room and taking hard drives? But I thought ExpressVPN doesn't log anything, so why would that matter? Let's just be real and practical about what problem this is actually purported to solve, else we should call it theater because it's what it is.
  - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
    the question was, is it better (than running off-disk), rather than "is it good enough for X" the answer is, yes. even an infintesimally smaller attack surface is better than an infinitesimally larger one, all other things being equal
    - 0daystock 4y ago
      It's not at all better - it's worse, exactly because it gives a false sense of security.
      - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
        you claim to know it gives you a false sense of security -- this knowledge itself of the possibility allays the concern
bragr 4y ago
Because it's pretty easy to set up a ready only server that runs off read only storage and that doesn't include any writable storage. The fact that it could be done doesn't really require extreme proof. They could still be lying but it's not a hard or unusual thing to do.

sodality2 4y ago

I don't mean to assume it's true to validate their advertising. For the sake of argument, if a server uses only a RAM disk, is that an improvement over having disks? Of course a network can still have sneaky equipment in between but that is still possible without RAM disks, so is it not beneficial to have a RAM disk? Please note that I am not arguing in favor of their advertising or to say that it is successfully avoiding surveillance. But, do you believe that no-disk boot, assuming it actually takes place, is a positive thing, or not? I admit I misconstrued your original comment to be a criticism of the technology rather than the fact that this VPN company advertises as such. Nonetheless I do think no-disk-boot is not useless as a technology and if you have any disagreement I would love to hear it, as someone who uses a VPN (not expressVPN) that says they use the same setup.

0daystock 4y ago
It depends entirely on the threat model. If three-letter agencies are the adversary, moving logging to RAM is unlikely to be a meaningful deterrent - they probably already have a root shell or direct access to the VM hypervisor. So if it doesn't protect against nation states, whom are we defending against? Another law enforcement agency raiding the server room and taking hard drives? But I thought ExpressVPN doesn't log anything, so why would that matter? Let's just be real and practical about what problem this is actually purported to solve, else we should call it theater because it's what it is.
- ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
  the question was, is it better (than running off-disk), rather than "is it good enough for X" the answer is, yes. even an infintesimally smaller attack surface is better than an infinitesimally larger one, all other things being equal
  - 0daystock 4y ago
    It's not at all better - it's worse, exactly because it gives a false sense of security.
    - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
      you claim to know it gives you a false sense of security -- this knowledge itself of the possibility allays the concern

bragr 4y ago

Because it's pretty easy to set up a ready only server that runs off read only storage and that doesn't include any writable storage. The fact that it could be done doesn't really require extreme proof. They could still be lying but it's not a hard or unusual thing to do.