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I would say, a little more hesitantly, that it deeply depends on what you are doing. When interacting remotely with untrusted services, apps, or documents, Qub
by gjsman-1000 2y ago
I would say, a little more hesitantly, that it deeply depends on what you are doing.
When interacting remotely with untrusted services, apps, or documents, Qubes cannot be beaten.
However, if I was afraid of my laptop getting attacked with an evil maid attack, I’m sticking with my Mac, Secure Boot, and FileVault; so that my Lock Screen is less likely to be patched against me. If I’m afraid of persistent malware, I want a platform that isn’t necessarily game over if the malware gets sudo privileges once. If I’m afraid of PIN guessing attempts to break in by brute force, I want something like a modern iPhone where the guessing limit is hardware enforced, not a Linux phone where it’s software enforced.
Same for if I were in a country with a hostile government. Nothing screams “I’m hiding something and I’m malicious” like using GrapheneOS or Qubes in Russia or China. They might not see your work, but the uncommon choices by itself makes you suspect. An iPhone and Mac over there suggests wealth, and would possibly socially increase your benefit of the doubt due to white collar associations; GrapheneOS and Qubes would shred all benefit of doubt you may have enjoyed.
I sometimes think of the Tor incident at a US College. I’m not encouraging this behavior, but a college student sent bomb threats to his university. He was identified, arrested, and convicted because he was the only one using Tor on the university network. A perfect example of how the “more secure” thing used without strategy can shoot yourself in the foot.
The point is: If you are reporting on military activity in the Donetsk region, don’t be the only person in the area using Qubes and Tor. Don’t be the only person in the area with a phone pinging GrapheneOS update servers, or a laptop pinging Qubes package repositories. Heck, don’t be the only guy with a phone on the cell network identifying as Android that inexplicably never talks to Google.
- accassar 2y agohttps://www.qubes-os.org/doc/anti-evil-maid/ https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/anti-evil-maid/
- sudohackthenews 2y agoAEM is a little sketchy though, you need to trust a flash drive to hold it, and make sure that drive doesn’t get overridden by a malicious attacker. Your link goes more into depth about the disadvantages
- transpute 2y agoIn some threat models, it's more feasible to protect a portable flash/SSD drive than an entire laptop. In other threat models, laptops/tablets/phones could be physically secured in a safe, or kept under direct physical supervision.
- sudohackthenews 2y agoYeah, that’s what I was alluding to. I think the OPs point still holds here- both of those are quite a bit harder than the built in Mac solution
- mrtesthah 2y agoHow about Heads? https://osresearch.net/ https://osresearch.net/ https://forum.qubes-os.org/t/what-makes-heads-so-great-when-combined-with-qubesos/26779 https://forum.qubes-os.org/t/what-makes-heads-so-great-when-...
- Fnoord 2y ago> When interacting remotely with untrusted services, apps, or documents, Qubes cannot be beaten. Sums up WWW. But I believe you could use a VM or container and use such. For example, with Whonix (which also works in Qubes!) What I'd like is use such in macOS but alas Jobs & Cook ask premium price for RAM on Macs. With regards to Donetsk example (I like the example). There is a good reason being hidden in plain sight is blending in with masses. It is difficult to get such OPSEC right, and you need to consider different techniques for if one gets burned.
- andy_ppp 2y agoHow stupid, if you’re going to send bomb threats do it from someone else’s computer…
- mjg59 2y agoIt's probably worth mentioning that secure boot is trivially circumventable given physical access on any Intel Mac (including T2 Macs), so you want at least an M1 to feel safer here
- Dalewyn 2y agoThere's an age old saying in Japan that if you want to hide a tree you should do so in a forest.
- woctordho 2y agoIn China we have ways to obfuscate those unusual traffic into usual ones like WeChat video calling