4 ms·

What I want is Little Snitch on steroids built into the OS where every process, You cannot trust an OS you cannot build yourself. That's why I see Linux as

What I want is Little Snitch on steroids built into the OS where every process, You cannot trust an OS you cannot build yourself. That's why I see Linux as the only option for professionals and privacy minded people.

proee 4y ago
How do you know there are no outside efforts to log linux activities? There's a lot of source code to go through and is it possible there are callbacks even within OSS that most people are not aware of?
- nathan_compton 4y ago
  At least its possible _in principal_ and many people out there can at least look at the code even if you can't dig through yourself. With Windows or OSX you're just out of luck.
- LukeShu 4y ago
  OSS is necessary, but (as you point out) not sufficient.
- dev_hugepages 4y ago
  Well at least with open source, you CAN verify it. There are people and companies who do audit You're replacing a big and unstoppable problem with a smaller one that can be mitigated
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  It all depends of course on the level of your paranoia/threat model. To prevent standard data leaking or rather stealing like in this case, linux is a quite solid choice. But if you think you are a high profile target, you should probably learn how to deactivate Intels ME and co. And if you are really paranoid, you should assume that there are hardware backdoors. But what do you do then? Build your computer from scratch?
  - smhoff256 4y ago
    Layers. It's all about layers.
- rhaway84773 4y ago
  I don’t need to go through all the source code myself. The fact that Apple itself, for example, relies on Linux for most of its servers and has not raised any alarms about bits of Linux phoning home is a pretty powerful heuristic that it’s relatively safe. Multiply that by all the multibillion dollar other companies, the tens of thousand open source focused smaller and large companies, the hobbyists, the enthusiasts, the CS professors, the CS undergrad and grad students, the PHD candidates who would be thrilled to discover a flaw on the basis of which they could write their thesis, etc. and I think one can have a fair degree of confidence. There’s still a decent chance something would be missed. But it’s much smaller than the chance that the proprietary OS owners, whom we know for a fact phone home and have been trying to collect increasing amounts of data, are sending stuff we may not know about.
  - robocat 4y ago
    > The fact that Apple itself relies on Linux for most of its servers is a pretty powerful heuristic that Linux is relatively safe [paraphrased by me] Many world-class companies depend on Windows, so does that mean you think Windows is safe? An individual does not have the same access to custom tools, and teams of competent people, that ensure their usage of the Linux ecology is secure. A recent example: I was investigating using CloudFlare Functions, because I think CloudFlare has world-class security and that “serverless” product avoids many security issues I might have with other solutions. Yet one setup step suggested piping in a script from curl to shell (commonly suggested for install steps!). Even worse, https://github.com/cloudflare/wrangler2 https://github.com/cloudflare/wrangler2 is their CLI tool to help development, and Wrangler is based on the node ecology, which is completely insecurable as an individual developer IMHO (trillion dollar companies can probably secure the dev environment). I use a VM to provide some sandboxing, but it still leaves me feeling icky.
dagmx 4y ago
That assumes people actually have the capacity to examine the source to do so and make the requisite adjustments. The real answer IMHO is to control your networking stack outside of your computer instead. Firewall that and you have way better security
- three_seagrass 4y ago
  How do you do packet inspection when they're all encrypted?
  - dagmx 4y ago
    You can still inspect whether you’re having packets sent when you add text or just when you click on certain options You could add large amounts of text and see if the packets increase proportionally. You can perhaps analyze which apps or extensions are sending packets. This post doesn’t provide enough information of value
    - smolder 4y ago
      > You can still inspect whether you’re having packets sent when you add text or just when you click on certain options Batching very commonly obscures this kind of UI interaction reporting.
  - M95D 4y ago
    You install a proxy server that MITMs all connections and reencrypts data with your own certificate that you install in your system.
  - 05 4y ago
    TLS MITM. But you better be 100% sure your middle box is not compromised.
    - Melatonic 4y ago
      This. Not so hard to do and lots of corporations already do it. But yeah - whatever you are running on that box better be legit!
hardware2win 4y ago
With the compiler that you verified and built yourself :)
- II2II 4y ago
  I believe this is a reference to: http://wiki.c2.com/?TheKenThompsonHack http://wiki.c2.com/?TheKenThompsonHack
- simpleintheory 4y ago
  Itself built with a compiler you verified and built yourself.
  - LegitShady 4y ago
    It's self built compilers all the way down
M95D 4y ago
In fact, you cannot trust an OS you DIDN'T build yourself. And there are only two of those: Linux from scratch and Gentoo.
- microtonal 4y ago
  How do you know that the compiler that was used to compile your compiler was not backdoored (or binutils/glibc/bash)? You may instead want to look at the bootstrapping work done using stage0, m2-planet, GNU Mes, etc. https://bootstrapping.miraheze.org/wiki/Stage0 https://bootstrapping.miraheze.org/wiki/Stage0 https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Reduced-Binary-Seed-Bootstrap.html https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Reduced-Binary-Seed... It starts with a hex monitor of less than 500 bytes and bootstraps all the way up to gcc, all from source.
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  In fact, you cannot trust an OS you DIDN'T build yourself ... with a compiler you wrote yourself. In assem-- uh, in hexade... no. With toggle switches.
ridgered4 4y ago
Yeah, this is a strange take to me. Akin to catching the fox guarding your hen house eating the hens and reacting by having the fox install and monitor a security camera for the hen house. The problem is still the fox and he'll just turn the camera off when he wants the hens.
- exceptione 4y ago
  This analogy makes me smile, it's a good one!

proee 4y ago

How do you know there are no outside efforts to log linux activities? There's a lot of source code to go through and is it possible there are callbacks even within OSS that most people are not aware of?

nathan_compton 4y ago
At least its possible _in principal_ and many people out there can at least look at the code even if you can't dig through yourself. With Windows or OSX you're just out of luck.
LukeShu 4y ago
OSS is necessary, but (as you point out) not sufficient.
dev_hugepages 4y ago
Well at least with open source, you CAN verify it. There are people and companies who do audit You're replacing a big and unstoppable problem with a smaller one that can be mitigated
hutzlibu 4y ago
It all depends of course on the level of your paranoia/threat model. To prevent standard data leaking or rather stealing like in this case, linux is a quite solid choice. But if you think you are a high profile target, you should probably learn how to deactivate Intels ME and co. And if you are really paranoid, you should assume that there are hardware backdoors. But what do you do then? Build your computer from scratch?
- smhoff256 4y ago
  Layers. It's all about layers.
rhaway84773 4y ago
I don’t need to go through all the source code myself. The fact that Apple itself, for example, relies on Linux for most of its servers and has not raised any alarms about bits of Linux phoning home is a pretty powerful heuristic that it’s relatively safe. Multiply that by all the multibillion dollar other companies, the tens of thousand open source focused smaller and large companies, the hobbyists, the enthusiasts, the CS professors, the CS undergrad and grad students, the PHD candidates who would be thrilled to discover a flaw on the basis of which they could write their thesis, etc. and I think one can have a fair degree of confidence. There’s still a decent chance something would be missed. But it’s much smaller than the chance that the proprietary OS owners, whom we know for a fact phone home and have been trying to collect increasing amounts of data, are sending stuff we may not know about.
- robocat 4y ago
  > The fact that Apple itself relies on Linux for most of its servers is a pretty powerful heuristic that Linux is relatively safe [paraphrased by me] Many world-class companies depend on Windows, so does that mean you think Windows is safe? An individual does not have the same access to custom tools, and teams of competent people, that ensure their usage of the Linux ecology is secure. A recent example: I was investigating using CloudFlare Functions, because I think CloudFlare has world-class security and that “serverless” product avoids many security issues I might have with other solutions. Yet one setup step suggested piping in a script from curl to shell (commonly suggested for install steps!). Even worse, https://github.com/cloudflare/wrangler2 https://github.com/cloudflare/wrangler2 is their CLI tool to help development, and Wrangler is based on the node ecology, which is completely insecurable as an individual developer IMHO (trillion dollar companies can probably secure the dev environment). I use a VM to provide some sandboxing, but it still leaves me feeling icky.

dagmx 4y ago

That assumes people actually have the capacity to examine the source to do so and make the requisite adjustments. The real answer IMHO is to control your networking stack outside of your computer instead. Firewall that and you have way better security

three_seagrass 4y ago
How do you do packet inspection when they're all encrypted?
- dagmx 4y ago
  You can still inspect whether you’re having packets sent when you add text or just when you click on certain options You could add large amounts of text and see if the packets increase proportionally. You can perhaps analyze which apps or extensions are sending packets. This post doesn’t provide enough information of value
  - smolder 4y ago
    > You can still inspect whether you’re having packets sent when you add text or just when you click on certain options Batching very commonly obscures this kind of UI interaction reporting.
- M95D 4y ago
  You install a proxy server that MITMs all connections and reencrypts data with your own certificate that you install in your system.
- 05 4y ago
  TLS MITM. But you better be 100% sure your middle box is not compromised.
  - Melatonic 4y ago
    This. Not so hard to do and lots of corporations already do it. But yeah - whatever you are running on that box better be legit!

hardware2win 4y ago

With the compiler that you verified and built yourself :)

II2II 4y ago
I believe this is a reference to: http://wiki.c2.com/?TheKenThompsonHack http://wiki.c2.com/?TheKenThompsonHack
simpleintheory 4y ago
Itself built with a compiler you verified and built yourself.
- LegitShady 4y ago
  It's self built compilers all the way down

M95D 4y ago

In fact, you cannot trust an OS you DIDN'T build yourself. And there are only two of those: Linux from scratch and Gentoo.

microtonal 4y ago
How do you know that the compiler that was used to compile your compiler was not backdoored (or binutils/glibc/bash)? You may instead want to look at the bootstrapping work done using stage0, m2-planet, GNU Mes, etc. https://bootstrapping.miraheze.org/wiki/Stage0 https://bootstrapping.miraheze.org/wiki/Stage0 https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Reduced-Binary-Seed-Bootstrap.html https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Reduced-Binary-Seed... It starts with a hex monitor of less than 500 bytes and bootstraps all the way up to gcc, all from source.
CamperBob2 4y ago
In fact, you cannot trust an OS you DIDN'T build yourself ... with a compiler you wrote yourself. In assem-- uh, in hexade... no. With toggle switches.

ridgered4 4y ago

Yeah, this is a strange take to me. Akin to catching the fox guarding your hen house eating the hens and reacting by having the fox install and monitor a security camera for the hen house. The problem is still the fox and he'll just turn the camera off when he wants the hens.

exceptione 4y ago
This analogy makes me smile, it's a good one!