OS Tier List

keiko@fedia.io · 3 days ago

OS Tier List

hirihit640@sh.itjust.works · 2 days ago

Well you still need to run stuff on the computer. Like a browser. And if you want that to be secure as Qubes OS, you’d wrap the browser in a VM. To defend against usb attacks and networking attacks, you’d wrap those interfaces in a VM too, like Qubes does. Then have a way of routing the networking between the VMs. Etc etc. So it’s not just stripping things down. You have to build things up too, if you want to emulate Qubes.

redsand@infosec.pub · 2 days ago

Hardware segregation › virtual. Im not really thinking general purpose either.

keiko@fedia.io · 2 days ago

I think you mean hardware isolation. By leveraging a type 1 hypervisor, Qubes OS does have hardware isolation, in addition to software-based isolation. For instance, physical devices like ethernet, wireless, and usb, are all capable of being isolated from the rest of the system (and from each other) and managed by dedicated service qubes. You can also have dedicated minimal templates for each service qube to reduce attack surface and increase efficiency of the service qubes. And then you can also configure the service qubes to be disposable, which is very nice.

redsand@infosec.pub · 1 day ago

All the isolation breaks with a xen 0day. I love qubes but it has its weknesses.

hirihit640@sh.itjust.works · 2 days ago

Not sure what you mean by hardware segregation. If you mean, having multiple PCs, then that can actually be less secure. You now have to secure multiple devices against physical attacks, instead of just one. And you have to figure out how to transfer files securely between them.

Im not really thinking general purpose either.

What’s the setup you’re thinking about?

redsand@infosec.pub · 2 days ago

If you want anonymity not just security you can do whonix on hardware or I2P on a seprate host with a minimal headless install. I’m thinking more along the lines of a machine that only does a single job like a chat app client, a server, a word processor, CAD, etc… IRC, simplex and others don’t even need X or wayland.

hirihit640@sh.itjust.works · 2 days ago

Qubes has Whonix templates to make it easy to dispose and recreate your Whonix VMs. And as the other reply said, handling networking is not trivial, tons of opportunity for user error if you try to do it yourself. If you want to give it a shot for fun, nothing wrong with that. Just don’t expect it to be as secure as Qubes, unless you are actually a security expert

redsand@infosec.pub · 1 day ago

I don’t consider IP tables as easy to fuck up as real code or SELinux policies but yes there’s lots of room for error. Not for the faint of heart.

hirihit640@sh.itjust.works · 1 day ago

I find programming easier than networking actually. Because networking is so weirdly designed, and has so many footguns. For example, dealing with the fact that a router (or any PC on the network masquerading as a router) can inject routes into your system (see the TunnelVision exploit for more on this). I presume that things like this are the reason why Qubes isolates the network interfaces to a separate VM.

keiko@fedia.io · 2 days ago

If the “one job” involves networking, then the machine is already doing more than one job, since it’s also managing network connection and firewalling. I’m not saying that such a thing can’t be very well-optimized for security, just that networking complicates things.