Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: fartsinthewind on June 27, 2013, 02:44 am

Title: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: fartsinthewind on June 27, 2013, 02:44 am
Just found a good deal locally on this machine, going to pick her up tomorrow, use for only security and on public wifi. Specs are as follows:

Dell Latitude D420

Intel Centrino 1.06GHz CPU
1GB RAM
new - 60GB hard drive
new - A/C Adapter
SD Card slot
3 - USB ports
Ethernet port
modem port
VGA output port
PCMCIA Slot
Wireless
NO-CD-ROM-DRIVE
Linux Ubuntu 12 Installed


It's refurbished, wish it had a better processor, but overall, thoughts? What say ye
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: hoobydoobydoo on June 27, 2013, 03:02 am
Good call posting the exact specs and purchase timeframe of your system being used to conduct illegal activity!

I say raaagghhrrr.

1GB RAM?  What is this 2000?
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: HeatFireFlame on June 27, 2013, 06:28 pm
Good call posting the exact specs and purchase timeframe of your system being used to conduct illegal activity!

I say raaagghhrrr.

1GB RAM?  What is this 2000?
Who cares about the ram if he is only using it for SR? Does not need a hell of a lot of ram to run.

Good idea. Just make sure the previous user is not some dickhead who watches kiddie porn on it so the machine is already flagged.
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: Tessellated on June 27, 2013, 06:40 pm
Who cares about the ram if he is only using it for SR? Does not need a hell of a lot of ram to run.

Good idea. Just make sure the previous user is not some dickhead who watches kiddie porn on it so the machine is already flagged.

If you run TAILS you will find 1gb to be a bit tight, it has to load the whole OS into RAM you see.

If I bought a system specifically for security purposes I would not describe it in detail in public. Also, nuke the drive and install the OS yourself.
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: golden horse on June 27, 2013, 06:45 pm
This thread is making me laugh, I dont know why.......

Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: Ro-Jaws on June 27, 2013, 06:57 pm
If you run whonix you will seriously struggle with 1GB
If you want to run qubes your machine will melt and/or ossify on the spot
that only really leaves liberte, unless the OP is planning on using an insecure (or nominally insecure but then secured OS like debian), which would be kind of pointless as the machine was bought solely for SR use.
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: cowpie34 on June 27, 2013, 07:00 pm
what is TAILS?  Is it hard to set up or can you just install it?  Thank you
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: Tessellated on June 27, 2013, 07:02 pm
what is TAILS?  Is it hard to set up or can you just install it?  Thank you

It is a secure OS that forces everything through tor and forgets everything you do. It also supports encrypted persistance drives.

You just burn the image to a disc and boot from it, super easy.
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: astor on June 27, 2013, 07:36 pm
If you run TAILS you will find 1gb to be a bit tight, it has to load the whole OS into RAM you see.

I can easily run Tails in a 512 MB VM.
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: cowpie34 on June 27, 2013, 07:37 pm
Thank you!!!!  Sometimes it's so nice to have a simple answer without computer speak.  Thanks
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: Tessellated on June 27, 2013, 07:46 pm
If you run TAILS you will find 1gb to be a bit tight, it has to load the whole OS into RAM you see.

I can easily run Tails in a 512 MB VM.

I would not know about that. It sort of defeats the purpose of running something like TAILS in a VM when your host OS could have malware taking screenshots and reading your keyboard. I run TAILS off the wire.

I think TAILS even warns you when it detects it is running as a VM.
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: astor on June 27, 2013, 08:36 pm
I don't do it for security. I boot it in a VM to figure things out and help answer questions that people have about Tails. I don't feel like rebooting just do that.
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: Tessellated on June 27, 2013, 09:26 pm
I don't do it for security. I boot it in a VM to figure things out and help answer questions that people have about Tails. I don't feel like rebooting just do that.

If you are just giving it a test drive then a vm is fine.
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: Ro-Jaws on June 27, 2013, 10:02 pm
If you run TAILS you will find 1gb to be a bit tight, it has to load the whole OS into RAM you see.

I can easily run Tails in a 512 MB VM.


Thats interesting. The tails specs list 1GB RAM as the minimum for smooth running. When I first started I used a live USB it was on an old machine which had 1GB and it struggled. The 2GB machine I used next fared better but Ive never had a zippy tails.
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: astor on June 27, 2013, 10:30 pm
I just checked Tails 0.19 in VirtualBox. It uses 320 MB of RAM after TorBrowser has started. Then I started Pidgin, Claws Mail, GIMP, Scribus and Gobby and it was using 376 MB. Granted, I didn't do anything with these apps. I'm sure the RAM increases over time, so yeah to run many applications for a long time, you'll want more than 512 MB, but I think if you only use TorBrowser, 512 should be fine.
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: one2bcurious on June 27, 2013, 11:41 pm
Who cares about the ram if he is only using it for SR? Does not need a hell of a lot of ram to run.

Good idea. Just make sure the previous user is not some dickhead who watches kiddie porn on it so the machine is already flagged.

If you run TAILS you will find 1gb to be a bit tight, it has to load the whole OS into RAM you see.

If I bought a system specifically for security purposes I would not describe it in detail in public. Also, nuke the drive and install the OS yourself.

Which OS do you suggest?
God damn it is nice not to be stuck in the Newbie board!
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: p3nd8s on June 28, 2013, 12:15 am
what is TAILS?  Is it hard to set up or can you just install it?  Thank you

It's a secure Operating System that uses TOR.
Installation instructions:  http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=114141.0
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: mito on June 28, 2013, 04:48 am


1GB RAM?  What is this 2000?

In 2000 I was using 128mb and windows 2000.....
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: HeatFireFlame on June 28, 2013, 01:09 pm
Who cares about the ram if he is only using it for SR? Does not need a hell of a lot of ram to run.

Good idea. Just make sure the previous user is not some dickhead who watches kiddie porn on it so the machine is already flagged.

If you run TAILS you will find 1gb to be a bit tight, it has to load the whole OS into RAM you see.

If I bought a system specifically for security purposes I would not describe it in detail in public. Also, nuke the drive and install the OS yourself.

Which OS do you suggest?
God damn it is nice not to be stuck in the Newbie board!

Tails is an operating system itself. Just search the forums there are plenty of guides on how to do it, if thats not simple enough for you, Just search for tails on startpage, go to their main site, cick install And it gives you instructions anyway.
It seems fairly difficult the first time, But you will never forget after that.

:)
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: mito on June 28, 2013, 02:10 pm
Good call posting the exact specs and purchase timeframe of your system being used to conduct illegal activity!

Paranoid!!!

   ;o)
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: Jack N Hoff on June 28, 2013, 02:18 pm
I hope you are not paying more than a hundred bucks USD.  Shitty slow single core processor and 1gb RAM?  No disc drive?  60GB HD, hopefully solid state since it's that small but very doubtful with those specs.

Basically what I'm saying here is that a $200 netbook has better specs and is much more portable.
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: FartBomber on June 28, 2013, 02:26 pm
I dont know if you have the funds for it but if you do please get a better laptop and put Ubuntu + Trevisor on it and do the necesary hardening to the OS including VPN & Tor routing.
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: HeatFireFlame on June 28, 2013, 02:33 pm
I dont know if you have the funds for it but if you do please get a better laptop and put Ubuntu + Trevisor on it and do the necesary hardening to the OS including VPN & Tor routing.

Hi Fbomber, What do you mean by OS Hardening ? Is Tor routing hardening the OS? Just want to see if there more i can be doing. :)
Cheers
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: fartsinthewind on June 29, 2013, 07:26 am
I hope you are not paying more than a hundred bucks USD.  Shitty slow single core processor and 1gb RAM?  No disc drive?  60GB HD, hopefully solid state since it's that small but very doubtful with those specs.

Basically what I'm saying here is that a $200 netbook has better specs and is much more portable.


Christ allmighty people. Of course i'm not paying more than a c-note. I failed to mention it's expandable to 2.5 gigs ram, but shit! This is exactly the reason I rarely pose questions on here. Anybody not named pine or astor need not reply most of the time. To those of you who contributed, thanks. To those of you who made a mockery out of a serious question, GFY
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: Jack N Hoff on June 29, 2013, 10:51 am
I hope you are not paying more than a hundred bucks USD.  Shitty slow single core processor and 1gb RAM?  No disc drive?  60GB HD, hopefully solid state since it's that small but very doubtful with those specs.

Basically what I'm saying here is that a $200 netbook has better specs and is much more portable.


Christ allmighty people. Of course i'm not paying more than a c-note. I failed to mention it's expandable to 2.5 gigs ram, but shit! This is exactly the reason I rarely pose questions on here. Anybody not named pine or astor need not reply most of the time. To those of you who contributed, thanks. To those of you who made a mockery out of a serious question, GFY

Okay, good on the price.  I hope you aren't referring to me there. ::)

I dont know if you have the funds for it but if you do please get a better laptop and put Ubuntu + Trevisor on it and do the necesary hardening to the OS including VPN & Tor routing.

Hi Fbomber, What do you mean by OS Hardening ? Is Tor routing hardening the OS? Just want to see if there more i can be doing. :)
Cheers

TOR has nothing to do with a hardened operating system.  TOR is onion routing.  A three hop proxy that changes nodes every 10 minutes.  A hardened operating system is an operating system with a small surface of vulnerability like TAILS.  It has unnecessary ports closed, security patches, no unnecessary software or services that could be used as an attack vector and hardening scripts which disable unnecessary features among other things to harden the system.  Windows sucks for hardening.  OpenBSD, BSD and Linux are suited very well for this.
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: HeatFireFlame on June 29, 2013, 11:36 am
I hope you are not paying more than a hundred bucks USD.  Shitty slow single core processor and 1gb RAM?  No disc drive?  60GB HD, hopefully solid state since it's that small but very doubtful with those specs.

Basically what I'm saying here is that a $200 netbook has better specs and is much more portable.


Christ allmighty people. Of course i'm not paying more than a c-note. I failed to mention it's expandable to 2.5 gigs ram, but shit! This is exactly the reason I rarely pose questions on here. Anybody not named pine or astor need not reply most of the time. To those of you who contributed, thanks. To those of you who made a mockery out of a serious question, GFY

Okay, good on the price.  I hope you aren't referring to me there. ::)

I dont know if you have the funds for it but if you do please get a better laptop and put Ubuntu + Trevisor on it and do the necesary hardening to the OS including VPN & Tor routing.

Hi Fbomber, What do you mean by OS Hardening ? Is Tor routing hardening the OS? Just want to see if there more i can be doing. :)
Cheers

TOR has nothing to do with a hardened operating system.  TOR is onion routing.  A three hop proxy that changes nodes every 10 minutes.  A hardened operating system is an operating system with a small surface of vulnerability like TAILS.  It has unnecessary ports closed, security patches, no unnecessary software or services that could be used as an attack vector and hardening scripts which disable unnecessary features among other things to harden the system.  Windows sucks for hardening.  OpenBSD, BSD and Linux are suited very well for this.

Thats what i was thinking, Yeah mate for your new PC, Just install tails onto a usb (which is an operating system) and then boot up from there, prefferably before using the pc for personal use.
Have linux ubuntu or something on your actual operating system.
:)
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: gingerballs on June 29, 2013, 04:07 pm
i'd prefer buying a smaller laptop, like one of those acer netbooks (10 or 11.6 inches). they're newer, relatively cheap, and not so cumbersome.
Title: Re: Just purchased Dell Lattitude for SR use only
Post by: GrimWaldo on June 29, 2013, 04:58 pm
Just to chime in...
When first investigating TAILS, I ran it on an old 800Mhz DeskTop with 512MiB RAM. Sure, not very zippy, but it easily ran as well as WinXP on the same machine. Irregardless, whatever hardware you're using, TAILS is the way to go!

...I gotta get me one of those NetBooks.