[ExI] Revealed: how Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages

[BillK]

On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 1:22 PM, Eugen Leitl  wrote:
> I'm sorry, Raspberry Pi is not an open system. As far as I know
> there is no open source hardware on the market, so you would
> be limited to soft CPU DIY from http://opencores.org/projects
>
> Of course, you'd need the open source equivalent of seL4 and
> a fully hardened, sandboxed application stack. I'm afraid you're
> a bit SoL here.
> We're making progress, but we're not nearly there yet.
>


I don't see any open source chip fabs appearing ever.....

I was comparing the Raspberry Pi with an Intel quad-core pc running Windows.
The Pi is far more secure.

I am well aware that if the NSA, etc. make you a target then there are
ways around every protection measure you might take. 99% of the
population don't even care. All we can do is make life a bit more
difficult for the NSA, preferably using measures that don't attract
their attention. This is even more interesting if they waste time on
your pc and you have nothing on your computer to hide anyway.

As a general point it is worth pointing out that if security is your
main concern, then you don't want to run the latest greatest CPU with
the fastest internet connection you can buy and then worry about
trying to make it secure.

For greatervsecurity on an internet connected pc you need an old
processor with the minimum of memory, on the edge of useability, with
a slow internet connection. Even just dial-up. This means that if any
strange new process runs there is an immediate noticeable performance
hit.

I have had powerful quad-core pcs brought to me with complaints about
slow running, that were infested with viruses and adware so that the
pc was almost at a standstill before the user noticed any problem
worth bothering about.

So for security I would use an old slow pc which complains when
anything new starts up. This means that any attack software has to
have a very light footprint on cpu, memory, disk and connection usage.

Of course, on its own this doesn't guarantee security, (nothing does),
but it helps.

BillK