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Tails Linux 2.5 is out (Aug 2, 2016).
Tails is a live system that aims to preserve your privacy and anonymity. It helps you to use the Internet anonymously and circumvent censorship almost anywhere you go and on any computer but leaving no trace unless you ask it to explicitly.
It is a complete operating system designed to be used from a DVD, USB stick, or SD card independently of the computer's original operating system. It is Free Software and based on Debian GNU/Linux.
Tails comes with several built-in applications pre-configured with security in mind: web browser, instant messaging client, email client, office suite, image and sound editor, etc
= Announcements:
https://tails.boum.org/news/version_2.5/index.en.html
https://twitter.com/Tails_live/status/760516381905448968
https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/amnesia-news/2016-August/000110.html
https://twitter.com/torproject/status/760516806587117568
[Continues...]
Useful links:
- Download / Burning Tails on a DVD: (See also: "Direct Downloads")
https://tails.boum.org/install/dvd/index.en.html- Download and verify using OpenPGP:
https://tails.boum.org/install/download/openpgp/index.en.html- Download / and verify the Tails ISO image (#2):
https://tails.boum.org/install/download/- Numerous security holes in Tails 2.4:
https://tails.boum.org/security/Numerous_security_holes_in_2.4/index.en.html- About:
https://tails.boum.org/about/index.en.html- News:
https://tails.boum.org/news/index.en.html- Getting Started:
https://tails.boum.org/getting_started/index.en.html- First steps with Tails:
https://tails.boum.org/doc/first_steps/index.en.html- Documentation:
https://tails.boum.org/doc/index.en.html
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Wednesday August 03 2016, @05:07PM
"Active Management Technology": The obscure remote control in some Intel hardware [fsf.org]
Intel x86s hide another CPU that can take over your machine (you can't audit it) [boingboing.net]
Executive Summary:
The processor on your motherboard, right now, already has another "management engine" processor on the chip. The microprocessor won't run unless the management engine says everything is okay. And everything is only "okay", if the management engine is running a secret closed blob of software.
Paranoid yet?
The one thing I learned in 2013 from the Snowden revelations was that no matter how outlandish, how ridiculously paranoid I might try to adjust my aluminum headwear, things are already worse than I think.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @05:20PM
And remember kids: it's not because you're paranoid, that they're not out to get you!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @05:41PM
And it's only a matter of time until some blackhat figures out what magic packets to send the AMT chip to take over your system. It'll be an unfixable, permanent, zero-day rootkit installed across some huge fraction of the world's general purpose computers. It *is* that already, but it just happens to be controlled by Intel and whatever nation states they've given access to--assume whatever Intel can do Five Eyes also has access to that same capability.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 03 2016, @07:35PM
I would suggest that some nation's intelligence services already have that permanent zero-day rootkit for all Intel / AMD processors. But I won't suggest it. Because that would sound crazy and paranoid.
. . . and if they don't like it, we'll build the rootkits into their hardware. And we'll make them pay for it . . .
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @05:47PM
Cool.
Use a NIC that isn't built into the motherboard.
Problem solved.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @05:58PM
Intel is a common supplier of NIC chips, too.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 03 2016, @07:43PM
How do you know that when your PC is off, that this management engine doesn't still get power? PC's haven't had actual mechanical power cut off switches for a long time now. When your PC is off, suppose that chip within a chip could control any hardware that the main processor could control. That could include powering up, accessing the disk, the network, etc.
If I wanted to really sound paranoid, I could suggest that maybe the power supply could be commanded to briefly fully power everything except for any fans and any video output. (That would require such a mechanism to exist.) Then after a brief time, just shut back down. You wouldn't hear anything. You wouldn't see anything. (Except maybe for a few blinks of an LED on your 3rd party network card.)
But that would sound like crazy talk.
I know that management of large fleets of computers is an important function. But if all of this were for some noble purpose, then why all the closed source black binary blob secrecy? And why not be able to fully cut off these functions in a secure manner on PCs that are not joined to some large fleet of centrally managed systems? Like your home PC.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @08:26PM
Your power supply will have a real power switch that really, truly, cuts power from the machine. No software could ever bypass that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @08:31PM
What's to say a low power processor can't work for a couple of hours on a capacitor charge, or for longer on the clock battery?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @10:47PM
Use an Atheros chipset.
God, you sound like you've never written a device driver or built an IC before.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday August 13 2016, @06:36PM
What's special about the atheros chipset? Is it somehow immune to all that?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday August 03 2016, @11:23PM
See plug. Pull plug.
Makes me think some old 486 motherboard might make the best gateway router.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday August 04 2016, @11:15PM
Laptops don't, but I've yet to see a single desktop system without a mechanical power switch -- usually wired directly to the mains input -- on the back of the power supply...
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday August 03 2016, @07:36PM
Recent AMD processors have similar features, for example DASH.
http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/cpu-development/tools-for-dmtf-dash/ [amd.com]
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Friday August 05 2016, @03:03AM
So what's the best processor out there that's not compromised? My hunch is that it's almost certainly an AMD processor, but which one? My guess would be that the Socket A, which was the last pure 32-bit AMD line, is likely safe. What about the 64-bit processors?