Wait, TailsOS wasn't created by the Tor project?
this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2024
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According to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tails_(operating_system)
Tails was first released on June 23, 2009. It is the next iteration of development on Incognito, a discontinued Gentoo-based Linux distribution.[9] The original project was called Amnesia. The operating system was born when Amnesia was merged with Incognito.[10] The Tor Project provided financial support for its development in the beginnings of the project.[8] Tails also received funding from the Open Technology Fund, Mozilla, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation.[11]
Open Technology Fund
Which is funded by US Congress, and they also funded Signal.
For those do not wish to use privacy-related projects funded by a world government, what is a good (in your opinion) alternative? Both with and without Tor involvement (since US govt funded that too).
Yes I realize encryption, computers and the internet are all also govt-funded, but everyone is free to pick their battles.
Don't entirely discount a project only because it is funded by the US government. Do take that as a big yellow flag, but not auto reject. Better to just asses the project for what it is with caution.
I find it much more likely that the US government has a huge interest in giving the public access to secure communication software that would be unbreakable by surveillance from a typical government. Why? Because those are the governments that are enemies of the US, and where the US is interested in regime change. And the existence of this software is much more influential towards regime change in those countries, rather than being threat to the US.
In fact, these softwares are barely a threat to the US. The US has no issue with them existing because they have such a powerful hold on their state.
I think any "privacy oriented OS" is inherently a questionable (kneejerk: Stupid and reeks of stale honey) strategy in the first place.
A very good friend of mine is a journalist. The kind of journalist where... she actually deals with the shit the average person online larps and then some. And what I and her colleagues have suggested is the following:
Two flash drives
- One that is a livecd for basically any linux distro. If you are able to reboot the machine you are using and boot to this, do it. That helps with software keyloggers but obviously not hardware
- One that is just a folder full of portable installs of the common "privacy oriented" software (like the tor browser) supporting a few different OS types.
Given the option? Boot the public computer to the live image. Regardless, use the latter to access whatever chat or email accounts (that NEVER are logged into on any machine you "own" or near your home) you need.
Isn't it risky plugging usb drives into untrusted machines?
... mostly the other way around?
Theoretically it is possible that a compromised machine could compromise a USB stick. If you are at the point where you are having to worry about government or corporate entities setting traps at the local library? You... kind of already lost.
Which is the thing to understand. Most of what you see on the internet is, to borrow from a phrase, Privacy Theatre. It is so that people can larp and pretend they are Steve Rogers fighting a global conspiracy while necking with a hot co-worker at an Apple store. The reality is that if you are actually in a position where this level of privacy and security matters then you need to actually change your behaviors. Which often involves keeping VERY strong disconnects between any "personal" device and any "private" device.
There have been a lot of terrible (but wonderfully written) articles about journalists needing to do this because a government or megacorporation was after them. Stuff like having a secret laptop that they never even take out of a farraday cage unless they are closer than not to an hour away from wherever they are staying that night.
If you are at the point where you are having to worry about government or corporate entities setting traps at the local library? You… kind of already lost.
What about just a blackmailer assuming anyone booting an OS from a public computer has something to hide? And then they have write access and there's no defense, and it doesn't have to be everywhere because people seeking privacy this way will have to be picking new locations each time. An attack like that wouldn't have to be targeted at a particular person.
Yes, now, anyway…
I feel like anyone could have seen this coming, if anything im surprised it didn't happen sooner