Qubes Tip: Opening links in your preferred AppVM
If you use Qubes like I do, you have many different AppVMs to compartmentalize different programs. You might have one VM for your email client, one for your jabber client, one for your password database. But if you click a link in any of these programs, it sure would be nice if that link opened in the browser VM of your choice. This isn’t all that hard to setup.
Backdoored Linux Mint, and the Perils of Checksums
Someone hacked the website of Linux Mint — which, according to Wikipedia’s traffic analysis report is the 3rd most popular desktop Linux distribution after Ubuntu and Fedora — and replaced links to ISO downloads with a backdoored version of the operating system. This blog post explains the situation.
Usable Crypto Capture the Flag Challenge
Last week, during USENIX’s first Enigma conference, EFF hosted a small Capture the Flag hacking competition. I designed one of the challenges myself, entitled Usable Crypto. It requires you to use PGP as an attacker rather than a defender. It’s on the easy side, as far as CTF challenges go, and I think many people who have absolutely no hacking skills but some fumbling-around-with-PGP skills could beat it without too much trouble. And it might even demonstrate why verifying fingerprints really is rather important.
Hardening Debian for the Desktop Using Grsecurity
I recently built a desktop system that I think is reasonably secure. It’s running Debian sid, also known as “unstable” — though in the Debian desktop world that just means you get to use the newest software. It’s just about as stable as “stable”, and besides, #yolo. It’s also running a grsecurity-patched Linux kernel and PaX, technologies that make Linux way more secure. Grsecurity protects you against memory corruption attacks, such as buffer overflows.
Some Thoughts on Faraday Bags and Operational Security
I recently took a trip to Moscow to interview National Security Agency whistblower Edward Snowden about operational security. In the article I published on The Intercept, I mentioned that I used a faraday bag.
Our first meeting would be in the hotel lobby, and I arrived with all my important electronic gear in tow. I had powered down my smartphone and placed it in a “faraday bag” designed to block all radio emissions.
Why I say Linux instead of GNU/Linux
I’ve been writing a computer security column for the Intercept. In most of my columns I mention Linux. Even when it’s not directly relevant (though it often is), most of my columns are in the form of tutorials, and I’d like my tutorials to be equally useful for Linux users as they are for Windows and Mac users.
Fact-checking Pando’s smears against Tor
If you’ve been able to ignore Pando Daily’s 100% non-technical smear campaign against the Tor Project and its developers and supporters, you’re lucky, and you may wish to stop reading now. Otherwise, read on, and perhaps prepare to lose a few brain cells.
Yasha Levine’s “investigation” against Tor unveiled what’s already prominently displayed on Tor’s website: that it was designed by the Navy and that it receives a lot of federal funding, the bulk of which comes from the Department of Defense.
Security Advisory: Upgrade to OnionShare 0.4 Immediately
Yesterday Jacob Appelbaum discovered an input sanitation bug in OnionShare 0.3. It is now fixed, and you should upgrade to the latest version before using it again. You can download the latest version from https://onionshare.org/.
The Universe Believes in Encryption
Our universe is built out of mathematics. Humans have been learning, discovering, and using mathematics for thousands of years because it’s the only thing that can accurately describe what happens around us. The laws of physics are written in mathematics, and they cannot be broken.
One year ago today the Snowden revelations began. Since then there has been a flood of calls for reform. A federal judge called the NSA “almost Orwellian”. Congress and President Obama have admitted that bulk surveillance of Americans is wrong and should end. But so far we haven’t seen real reform in the US, and we might never see it. Even if the US does pass meaningful surveillance reforms the problem won’t be solved. There are billions of people all over the world that rely on the Internet, and their privacy will continue to get violated by governments around the world.
