-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 Spying ... as a topic? It's a far greater problem than just that. On 9/08/2015 3:32 PM, Russell Coker wrote:
On Sat, 8 Aug 2015 05:14:21 PM Rick Moen wrote:
Open Source is the only chance not to lose privacy forever, and the biggest player, Linux, has crucial software replaced by a quite unruly mob. It will make it quiet hard to implement light-weight and safe IT solutions.
Snowden showed we've been far too complaisant about critical infrastructure security. The only way I know to improve that situation is attending to fundamentals: excess complexity/functionality, excess privilege, unnecessary trust, unnecessary code, lack of enforced policy, lack of well-planned and documented functionality and interconnections, default-permit, lack of alert monitoring, lack of roles with planned and defined rights.
It is not just about infrastructure; it is far larger than that. Something as ordinary as a USB device (or cable) or a monitor cable can be a problem. And inside your hardware, do you know what each and every device is doing? Inside your Intel CPU ... are you so sure that the binary blob doesn't add more insecurities than it might fix? That hugely complicated i7 or lesser CPU ... it's random number generator suspect? What else? This is massive. You can't trust Cisco, even if it isn't entirely their fault. You can't trust Juniper, again even if it isn't their fault. You can't trust Lenovo and this is THEIR own fault. I'm sure that this is just the tip of the iceberg though. It's hard to trust Google, Apple or Microsoft -- all of which has strong US presence and even with their outward rants that they will stand up to the government; well some of the actions have proved otherwise, they are too supportive of the government. Heck, even MS gives NSA exploit details before they are patched anywhere. Today, it's gotten to the point where you can't trust hardware, you can't trust software, you can't trust Google, Apple or Microsoft; and that's just for starters. Now, when you get to the Linux kernel.... is it perhaps trying to do too many things for too many situations such that it isn't modular enough, it is super huge and won't run on some hardware now in standard forms, contains many binary blobs (even as a last resort), is so bloated that is is another openssl or bind bucket of huge code that is at least somewhat suspect at best; you are only as good as your weakest link after all. The code base of systemd may be small, but the impact is huge and it's interrelation to kernels and other packages is far too great.
What Snowden showed us is that too many people have been too complacent about the political process. Politics matters and the big 2 parties (in the US, here, and other places) don't offer the answers. The "lesser of 2 evils" will still support spying.
Don't forget that the Snowden revelations were over 2 years ago, that's an awful long time in IT terms; chances are that things are far more invasive of privacy today, even with the relevations. Politics; heck even the radio gives bias all the time, as do the media. The level of Abbott cheer squadism has been at extreme levels. The ordinary person that doesn't pay attention is bound to form views that are often presented with a very tarred brush of bias. Ummm, metadata -- the Labor opposition was /tricked/ in to the legislatino that gave law enforcement access to metadata; a loophole that the LNP engineered in allowed them to reclassify border security as "law enforcement", thus giving them access. Potentially changes to the Australian Constitution are going to provide similar "loopholes" to allow governments to over reach even more in to our private lives. This is why it is so dangerous to support ANY changes to the Australian Constitution; not for Aboriginal recognition, not for local governance issues, not for ANYTHING.
The Snowden revelations have included little about OS level compromise and a lot about compromise of hardware that the vast majority of Linux users (including me) don't have the skill to oppose.
It has revealed far too much on the software side of things; ssl compromise as just one area. Skill and resource to attack some implement ions of encryption; and also outright poisoning of default protocols (thanks RSA [IN]security company!).
Finally the vast majority of Linux systems are single user. That means Android phones/tablets and desktop PCs running GNOME, KDE, etc. There is no need to compromise init. As much as people like to complain about systemd being supposedly bloated it's a tiny fraction of the size of any desktop environment and has much less interaction with the outside world. A hostile party who compromises your MUA or web browser (both of which routinely and predictably process data from potentially hostile sources on the Internet) can probably do all the damage that they want to do to your system without root access.
NO, I think the vast majority of Linux systems are Linux SERVERS (not desktops) and servers having no need for a lot of extra cruft and increased security risk or interference in handling system admin tasks. Such servers tend to have very few users have real interaction with the underlying OS; perhaps thousands or more interacting with services provided by the server, but no need for anything like systemd in the life of a Linux server on the whole. Actually I think that the systemd movement is one to /try/ to advance the idea of "Linux Desktop" for the masses as all other attempts have completely failed to date. To that end, perhaps there is a case for a systemd infected environment to become the desktop environment for the masses and to leave the majority of Linux usage clean from systemd for real server work. Given that Windows is going down the same track as Apple OS X to some extend and also Google's ecosystems; it is now more than ever before that we need more secured systems with [hopefully] less complexity and therefore less risk for end user privacy as well as security. Windows 10 with the default settings is a privacy nightmare -- it might just suit a user that uses a PC 100% for business tasks... but it might still put them at much greater risk just the same; if you are a private person, setting up Windows 10 with the /best/ settings is still going to be a risk, particularly if you are a person whom doesn't understand the ramifications of each setting that can effect you adversely and how it can do so. For those that love "Google Now" and/or "Siri", then "Cortana" on Windows 10 is going to be a god send; but for those that abhor such invasions of privacy and don't need such "interferences" and overbearance in to our private lives ... well this is just another nightmare. Oh and Win10 on Xbox with Kinect always watching, always listening. Amazon world with their "Echo" system too. Security cameras everywhere, facial recognition everywhere. Heck I've even seen a demonstration of an app on an iPad that can simply look at you and determine your heart rate and breathing patterns! The technology is well and truly there, 1984 is well past, but it is HERE right now today and it is only getting more and more invasive in to our private lives. Is there no area of modern life that we can avoid such high levels of big brother? We need personal security, we need air-gapped computers -- but even then they are often subject to other interferences and spying due to the radio signals that they are able to listen to and naturally emit.
If a hostile party wants to gain root access to your PC what they will probably do is compromise your MUA or web browser and then try a local root exploit. The Linux kernel is much larger than systemd and has many more interfaces to sources of hostile data.
Yes, again the Linux kernel is so bloated these days that it, in itself, presents a huge risk; much more that should be reasonable. Browsers... well, sure they are an easy target, so is Adobe (any product it seems, but particularly Flash). All the tracking with websites too, I hate web developers whom /have/ to bog down websites with scripts from everywhere to track every user of the website, let alone other scripts for "prettiness" or other reasons. Email, run your own server -- heck, we've been hit with bash, openssl, bind and loads of other problems ... and that is just in the *nix world. What's worse, there is every chance that more serious vulnerabilities are in the wild that may never come to light. So, here's a start [1] for /some/ privacy, it's a good start, but it isn't going to help with so many systems in place [many completely outside the control of our own systems] that we cannot even have ANY right or ability to avoid in normal day to day life. Running Tails isn't going to help as much as I would like either; there are always critical updates which invalidate all previously considered safe versions. What's more, some Tails settings are made to make it easier for the average Joe at the expense of security. Do we all wear Guy Fawkes masks? Note that that won't help much as there are other ways to get the "signature" of a person via electrical, electronic and other surveillance measures that don't rely on having to "see" a face. Hitler would have a ball with today's tech ... and how well the Kremlin will be doing now? [1] https://privacytools.io "Privacy? I don't have anything to hide." Glenn Greenwald: Why privacy matters Over the last 16 months, as I've debated this issue around the world, every single time somebody has said to me, "I don't really worry about invasions of privacy because I don't have anything to hide." I always say the same thing to them. I get out a pen, I write down my email address. I say, "Here's my email address. What I want you to do when you get home is email me the passwords to all of your email accounts, not just the nice, respectable work one in your name, but all of them, because I want to be able to just troll through what it is you're doing online, read what I want to read and publish whatever I find interesting. After all, if you're not a bad person, if you're doing nothing wrong, you should have nothing to hide." Not a single person has taken me up on that offer. Glenn Greenwald in Why privacy matters - TED Talk A. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iF4EAREIAAYFAlXHETMACgkQqBZry7fv4vvg1gD/VExuGnqPWc1fwL0E120MZ/Ms fWGTwJhuCJhwwGMtxLIA/jEPea7VhCcq6oz0YedaL9U/WHAS72RLU1wMccf7+nPf =46ht -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----