Honestly the biggest things are don't run shit as root and don't expose port 22. Especially don't run things you downloaded from some website as root but in general just don't run things as root. That'll handle most problems that are likely to arise.
compartmentalization
top reasons why GrapheneOS is highly praised: ability to create different profiles with different encryption keys, and hardened codes.
on Linux, the top choice is QuebeOS. But i tried it 4 times and still couldnt go with it. My laptop couldnt handle quebeos...
The other choice is SecureBlue. I heard that is called the Graphene of Linux. They have hardened codes, secure browser and very strict secure defaults. The downside? You need to be able to use distrobox, flatpak, rpm-ostree, brew to maintain your apps. So in a way, it is the same compartmentalization, but a bit messy.
If u cant deal with these 2, then maybe use TailOS to do your download. Not sure if it saves the data?
Using VM is also great. But i think a "super VM" is the only answer and that is QuebeOS. You can literally control everything inside each VM.
is grahene just on phones or computer too
only on phone
but Secureblue, a Linux distro, really follows Graphene's security hardening stuff.
You could make backups and practice restoring from them so you can not lose everything when you screw up.
You could learn not to screw up, which would go hand in hand with the above.
You could switch to a mac and enable all the security and privacy stuff in macos (there’s quite a bit, it’s well documented and very extensive!).
You could stop downloading from public sites and trackers and instead get on private trackers and use them exclusively.
1 does it take a lot of space usually?
2 how to do screw up (you need to screw up to learn how not to) and not get screwed with the consequences
3 thx
It either takes up a lot of space or it doesn’t. I don’t know how much you’re backing up or how much space is a lot to you.
You can’t screw up and learn without the consequences. That’s how you learn. Without the consequences you don’t take things seriously. Backups will help you to recover when you do screw up.
1 - there's 2 things to consider here... A) Your files (documents, photos, etc) B) Everything else (the Windows / Linux mac operating system, applications, your screensaver, printer defaults, etc)
You only need to backup A.
It's up to you if you want / have space for B
But, 1st time, backup everything. Then do item 2 (screw up) big time and do a full restore.
Once you've done that, you're set for life
thx
don't get software from random sites and use your package manager with distro provided repo only
Idk what software you're using, but most VM software has an easy way to take a snapshot of the VM state. If you're about to download something risky, take a quick VM snapshot, so if it ends up being some kind of malware, you can just roll the VM back to its earlier state without issue, takes like 2 minutes.
If you're worried about malware spreading through your network, you need to isolate your devices. The most common way to do this is with VLANs, but I don't know what your home network looks like, and if you just have a typical home setup with your ISP's modem/router and all your devices plugged into it or on the default wireless network, you won't be able to do that.
You could also use something like UFW on Linux to only allow internet traffic and block any traffic inbound or outbound to your LAN network, isolating your PC from all other devices on your LAN. This isn't great, because if your host is compromised, then your host-based firewall could also be compromised and the malware could then get out to the rest of your network.
You could invert this and have all your other devices on LAN set to block all traffic from your specific PC, which would be more secure, but also a pain to configure, plus it assumes all the other devices are able to be configured in that way on your LAN.
There are a bunch of other solutions, but it depends on your setup, your technical skill level, and your threat profile. If you're just torrenting cracked games and random software, that's somewhat risky, but not really that crazy if you are running it in a VM with rollback snapshots.
im not allowed t mess with the home network (its not mine)
Let's step back actually.
framework qubes xen hypervizor 3 or 4 stolen pii by hackers and companies and having to replae every device
If you've already got Qubes and Xen Hypervisor running, your technical level is high enough for sure. And honestly, your security is already probably good enough.
Qubes has very secure defaults, I don't think you need to do anything else, honestly what you have already might be overkill, but idk your use case.
Make sure you can't see your torrent/download machine VM from any other devices on your network. Use Nmap as long as it's your network. Don't use it on a corporate or university network, it will likely get your device totally locked out and you in big trouble.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0