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Will ParanoidLinux Protect the Truly Paranoid?
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Oct 04, 2008 03:30 PM
from the tinfoil-laptop-carrying-case dept.
from the tinfoil-laptop-carrying-case dept.
ruphus13 writes "There are still places on the world where having anonymity might mean the difference between life and death. Covering one's tracks is considered to be of such paramount importance that we are now witnessing the rise of a Linux distro catering to the most paranoid. The 'alpha-alpha' version of ParanoidLinux is now out. But is this the best way to protect oneself? Couldn't it be easily circumvented? The article asks, 'Why is it necessary to put the applications and services designed to protect anonymity, to encrypt files, to make the user nameless and faceless, all together, in one distribution? Let's think in a truly paranoid manner. Wouldn't it be far easier for a nefarious government organization to target that distribution's repositories, mirror that singular distribution's disk images with files of its own design, and leave every last one of that distribution's users in the great wide open?' What should truly paranoid user do?"
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Suggestion (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Suggestion (Score:5, Funny)
Are you talking about me?
Parent
Re:Suggestion (Score:5, Informative)
Just because you're paranoid
doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
Remember, this is the same "they" that
are responsible for every negative thing
that affects you. They are very powerful,
and pretty much omniscient, and although
you are boring, they are not bored
observing and foiling your every move.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
After the recent debates we(US'ians) know it its certain that the illuminati are not only tedious and uninspired but they can't even make original, decent movies. [note: illuminati==American government==Hollywood]
Re:Suggestion (Score:5, Funny)
reminds me of this:
In The Know: Is The Government Spying On Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough?
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/in_the_know_is_the_government [theonion.com]
Parent
It's a fucking plot! (Score:2)
They are a part of the conspiriakii! They are trying to lull you into false security! GET OFF THE GRID! Burn your credit cards! Burn your drivers license! Burn your birth certificate! GO FAR AWAY!!!!
Re:Suggestion (Score:5, Funny)
The truly paranoid user should get some help...
So says one of the brainwashed masses. Have you considered that perhaps the only reason you don't believe that the government is reading and writing your thoughts is because you have been programmed to think that way? And have you considered that perhaps the paranoid aren't crazy but they only appear that way because you have been programmed to think that way?
Of course not! This level of introspection would require you to break free of your programming. And even if you were able to independently do so, without wearing a psychotronic radiation deflector beanie you would just be reprogrammed in an instant.
For the rest of us 'paranoids' I recommend that we hunker down and reinforce each others 'crazy' ideas. After all, we are the only ones who recognize our thoughts for what they are: sanity. And no, we don't consider our criticizing of the lack of introspection of the brainwashed masses to be hypocrisy because we *know* that we are right, unlike the brainwashed masses who are programmed to think that way.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, I know for a fact that it is you who has been brainwashed into that state of paranoia: I work for a government agency which does that to people, simply for the entertainment value. Nice to see our out work here too: I rarely get to interact with our subjects!...
Where do you think those 700 thousand million dollars are going to? The whole crash thing is just cover up: that money is coming directly to us. I'll look up your file on Monday first thing in the morning.
Re:Suggestion (Score:4, Funny)
I would love to, but who to trust ...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Actually I'd probably be better off not knowing - it's probably someone from
well (Score:2, Insightful)
What should truly paranoid user do?
get help?
Re:well (Score:5, Interesting)
What should truly paranoid user do?
get help?
get BSD?
Seriously, there is already an OS aimed at security... OpenBSD:
"Our efforts emphasize portability, standardization, correctness, proactive security and integrated cryptography."
"Audit Process:
Our security auditing team typically has between six and twelve members who continue to search for and fix new security holes. We have been auditing since the summer of 1996. The process we follow to increase security is simply a comprehensive file-by-file analysis of every critical software component. We are not so much looking for security holes, as we are looking for basic software bugs, and if years later someone discovers the problem used to be a security issue, and we fixed it because it was just a bug, well, all the better. Flaws have been found in just about every area of the system. Entire new classes of security problems have been found during our audit, and often source code which had been audited earlier needs re-auditing with these new flaws in mind. Code often gets audited multiple times, and by multiple people with different auditing skills."
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Paranoid people need to ensure that things like Banshee in Gnome don't perform the "Similar Artists" lookup in case the RIAA is watching, or they are in a place where the internet is restricted, or where there taste in music could get them in trouble.
Then there is the issue of cached files, Gnome by default keeps a listing of all the files you open, it keeps a thumbnail of image that appears in Nautilus. You need to disable a
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You must be secure FIRST.
Otherwise you are not anonymous.
For anonymity as well as security (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone could resurrect the Anonym.os [sourceforge.net] project, an OpenBSD live CD with anonymity tools.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
God damn it, you gave me an excuse.
Re:well (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
but can the author be trusted?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Only if the self help book is self authored by the paranoid individual.
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
OBVIOUSLY the paranoid individual will not allow anyone else to see the self help book, let alone publish it.
Also, the self help book will be written freehand in blood. Every time the paranoid reads the book they will DNA test the blood to ensure that it is their own blood. DNA tests are ofcourse done in house and using tools that the paranoid has already assembled based on research that they have done themselves.
Still, there is a risk of clone operatives... but isn't there always?
Parent
TinfoilHat is much better (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Don't forget the floor and to duct-tape the doors and windows.
No, no, no, it has to be red construction tape! [imdb.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
LIES!!! User johndmartiniii (obviously an alias) wants us to use tinfoil as a signal blocker. Fortunately I have found a copy of the study on tinfoil the Reptoid scientific community tried to bury. It's On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study [mit.edu]
The obvious answer (Score:4, Funny)
Trust no one?
Re:The obvious answer (Score:4, Funny)
"Stay Alert! Trust No One! Keep Your Laser Handy!"
and
"Trust The Computer. The Computer is Your Friend."
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Hermit (Score:5, Insightful)
A truly paranoid person would be suspicious of absolutely everyone and everything. That would mean writing your own OS on your own hardware etc etc.
Since this is impossible, go and live in hiding with no human contact or chance thereof.
Why would you download this 'super-safe' OS from some people you never met, through a public unencrypted network, if your life depended on it?
Chuck Moore has done this... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd say he's well on his way to achieving this.
Parent
Re:Hermit (Score:4, Informative)
But there's no reason to ask whether or not the truly paranoid would be willing to use Paranoid Linux, because it's not aimed at them. It's just a clever name. It's aimed at people who actually have a rational fear that someone's out to get them. (Note that, if everyone really was out to get you, and you knew that they were, it would be impossible for you to be paranoid. The following is not an actual instance of Godwin's Law because I'm not using this to counteract anybody's argument, it's just an actual good example: while Hitler's often been described as paranoid, it would actually have been impossible for him to have been paranoid. Nearly every person in the world really did have potential reasons to be out to get him.)
So this is aimed at people like political dissenters in oppressive countries. They aren't paranoid, but in many ways they act like paranoid people, because it truly is possible, or even likely, that someone really is out to get them.
The main thing I worry about is that the mere presence of Paranoid Linux installed on your machine will be grounds for prosecuting you in the places where it's most needed. Is Paranoid Linux paranoid enough to make itself appear indistinguishable from Windows? Can Paranoid Linux run in the background as a stealth rootkit on Windows that you can't even find or access without secret, user-specifiable knowledge?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
compile it where? using what?
Based on an idea from Cory's book (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Get real (Score:2)
True open source question (Score:5, Insightful)
If you do not examine the source, how can you trust any piece of software? You are in effect agreeing to trust the unknown people that have looked at the source. Except in the case of a smallish distribution nobody may have actually looked into that particular distribution in any detail at all.
Of course, there is a greater issue of trust. If you accept chips made by unknown fabricators, do you know what microcode has been implemented? If you cannot examine the "source code" of the chips being used how can you actually trust that these chips are not doing things behind your back to reveal your identity and files?
So without a truly "open" computer, you are trusting a whole raft of unknown individuals and companies with your identity, your data, your reputation.
Moreover, if you are not knowledgeable about programming languages, using any computer is an act of utter faith with plenty of reason to not be so trusting. It is like climbing a mountain with a guide that only lost "a few" parties last year.
Re: (Score:2)
but how can you know the source code your running is what youve been shown?
even if you compile it all you have to assume your using a clean compiler.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You implement your own compiler in assembly, on open chips, and then you compile a checked version of gcc with the compiler you built and go on from there.
Obviously. :p
Re:True open source question (Score:4, Interesting)
Ken Thompson talks about using untrusted compilers in his lecture, "Reflections on Trusting Trust" [bell-labs.com].
(See also: this [scienceblogs.com])
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Great, and really cool, thought experiment. However, you can hand-assemble fairly easily (I wouldn't, though) and then you don't even need to trust so much as an assembler.
For the paranoid but lazy - check the C source for spies, compile to assembler, check the assembler and make sure it matches the C code, then hand-assemble.
Or write your own quick and dirty C compiler, use it to compile GCC, then compile it with itself so you get the nifty optimizations.
easy answer (Score:5, Insightful)
"What should truly paranoid user do?"
Stay off the internet.
Borrow wifi - get someone to type for you (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Always borrow random open wifi access points,
in a geographic pattern not centered around your habitual location
2. Get a new unknowing assistant to type in roughly what you want to say each time. There are pattern detectors for your ways of expressing things.
3. Establish online identities such as gmail that have no tie whatsoever to any of your identity info or financial info
What do do? (Score:3, Informative)
What should truly paranoid user do?
Pull the tinfoil hat down tighter....
Quite Franky (Score:5, Funny)
This slashdot story was posted to get us to use Paranoid Linux, which can only mean that some one planted a backdoor in it.
Paranoia (Score:2, Insightful)
The truly paranoid are irrational and contradictory.
They do things like refuse to fly on planes because the government obviously staged 9/11 and killed all of those people on the planes, so they don't want to become a part of that. But they'll work in the same areas that would be likely targets if another round of 9/11-esque hijackings occurred. They do things wrap everything in tin foil to keep the mind control/thought reading beams out, but happily sit in conspiracy theory forums all day, and go to work
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What? Who let the liberal arts major in here?
Just not in a public place. (Score:4, Interesting)
The truly paranoid shouldn't be online (Score:2, Funny)
Forget Linux, throw away all electronic devices, and follow these handy tips:
1. Preferably find a wife/husband related to you (the closer the better, because you can trust your blood kin more, but avoid anything closer than 3rd cousins if possible).
2. Squat on a large remote property you don't own (preferably somewhere considered by other folk to be inhabitable).
3. Have 10-50 kids (more than that and you might just be inviting mutiny).
4. Teach kids to how to hunt, fish, and guard the perimeter of the proper
A paranoid user should use this (Score:4, Interesting)
I think a lot of people misunderstand the concept of "single point of failure". With all of this stuff in one place, yes, there's only one place that attackers need to attack. But there's also only one place that defenders need to defend. The alternative is that all these security programs remain scattered in lots of places on the Internet. True, attackers probably won't be able to subvert more than a couple of those, but it only takes one flaw in your security for them to get you. If you subverted GPG, it doesn't matter much that TrueCrypt is still working for you. If someone subverted SSL, or DNS, and it doesn't matter much that the Linux Kernel is still secure. Best to get everything from one place, and make sure that one place is really, REALLY damn secure.
Re: (Score:2)
"truly paranoid need drugs not Linux."
The two are not mutually exclusive.
Sorry, Ken Thompson (brain fart...) (Score:3, Interesting)
"It is also possible to create a backdoor without modifying the source code of a program, or even modifying it after compilation. This can be done by rewriting the compiler so that it recognizes code during compilation that triggers inclusion of a backdoor in the compiled output. When the compromised compiler finds such code, it compiles it as normal, but also inserts a backdoor (perhaps a password recognition routine). So, when the user provides that input, he gains access to some (likely undocumented) asp
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You forgot to scrub down your body with a high-level disinfectant (potentially traceable commensal bacteria on your skin). After that, you'll have to spend the rest of your life in a full-body skin garment (DNA from shed skin cells). And you'll have to wear a full-helmet respirator (exhaled trace chemicals from your bloodstream, potentially traceable). And your suit will have to contain and reprocess all your wastes (DNA from epithelial cells in your urine/feces). And you can never speak a word (identif