Silk Road forums
Discussion => Security => Topic started by: Heyenezz on March 11, 2012, 09:06 am
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I've installed Liberte onto a USB, I've set my password, updated my bios, and have access to the initial settings page, but I always encounter a black screen after typing my password at which point Liberte hangs.
The FAQs suggested a variety of approaches including updating my bios (ditto), configuring VESA (no clue what the fuck that is or how to configure it), and turning splash on and off (no clue what the fuck that is or how to change it).
Since my my main priority is getting Liberte to work, will someone tell me how to turn Splash, whatever the fuck that is, on and off?
Liberte's security features sound cool, but goddamn, I truly despise Linux and cannot see the appeal in such a needlessly complicated and user-unfriendly OS. Almost every selling point for Linux is either trivial or applicable to other OS's (security--just don't do anything stupid in Windows; Free--lots of free software for Windows. Windows also comes with most computers. If worst comes to worst, you can pirate Windows from torrents; etc.) It'd be nice if Linux just worked like Windows or Mac OS. Being expected to use Linux is almost like being expected to know how every part of your car works before you can drive---it's crazy.
Sorry, if I seem irritated, but I've tried posting in various forums and reading about Liberte & Linux, including researching the official Liberte web page. Every potential solution I meet seems to involve at least 10 different steps I haven't a clue how to do plus requiring an understanding of several highly technical terms 90% of computer users have never even encountered (e.g., compile, root, etc.).
When I bring these issues up, Linux users just tell me to not use Liberte or not use Linux, when I really need Liberte to do what is I want to do.
Nothing against Linux users, but I'd deeply appreciate if someone would break things down for a noob such as myself instead of expecting me to already possess some computer-related expertise. I really just want to use Liberte for a few simple tasks/programs such as PGP, Tor, Truecrypt, compression/decompression, and word processing.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Miscellaneous questions:
1. How secure is Liberte's encryption? My password is long and contains several random characters.
2. How could I keep all my private data in an encrypted container inside Liberte such that I can download and upload it to and from a Tor site (e.g., as a Tormail attachment) while leaving no traces inside Liberte? See here: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=14430.0
3. How thoroughly would HDD Erase wipe my hard drive? I'm planning to get Liberte working, wipe my hard drive, then reinstall Windows.
4. What security is offered by setting a BIOS password?
5. What other security precautions would you suggest? (I thought of double-bagging the USB, placing it inside a fake rock, then hiding that someone outside away from home and property.)
I obviously don't expect someone to answer all these concerns though I'd be ever thankful if he or she did. Any who, have a good one.
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Yes, using Linux can be frustrating, but it is still infinitely superior to windows. Yes, it is also a crown of thorns! But still superior.
The more you use it, the more you'll see that this is the case. When your knowledge broadens, so does the power at your disposal. It's work, but it's usually worth it. This is not the case with Windows, which is a system I swear to God found the finest Soviet bureaucrats and central planners and put them to work, with Windows Vista and 7 being examples of the latter's experiences with Alzheimers. I can see Linux recovering from its flaws and evolving, but I can't say the same about Microsoft or Apple's products.
So. Think of using Linux as a long term investment, in the end it'll reward you. Walled Gardens (the development model for newbies) is comforting, but it lulls you into accepting inadequate products. An expert linux user, is quite literally a decade ahead of everybody else in terms of technological sophistication , that counts for a lot. Believe me, it's no joke.
Setting up your affairs on the Silk Road isn't user friendly or easy for the average person either, but there are reasons for those decisions. Feel free to purchase a Tux penguin and wring its neck occasionally though, great stress reliever... :D
Some answers to your questions:
1. If you search "remove communism", there's a thread explaining how to remove the Commie splash screen (better dead than red! ;-) ), John Keats has a tutorial on it in Paste Bin. It involves editing one or two text files on your usb, it's quite easy to do. However, I doubt it'll solve your hanging problem.
2. Ensure your USB port and your USB drive are both USB 2.0. This has often resolved problems like hanging for me.
3. Liberte's encryption is 8192 bit. For comparison, military grade encryption is 256 bit. It is also the largest key length possible with the majority of encryption software, so it is good for about a 100 years or so at least. Short of quantum computing, ha ha, but if that is setup, there'll be much bigger problems for the government than cracking your stuff.
4. With wiping a HD, you want to delete everything on it, and then run a program which will overwrite the entire HD with a single pass. Multiple passes, experts advise, are largely a waste of time, but you can do more if you want to, but it's effect will largely be psychosomatic than physical.
5. I don't think there's much security afforded by a BIOS password. I believe the BIOS is in EEPROM memory, so you could just reset the BIOS manually by exposing the BIOS chip on the motherboard to light. I think this is correct, but I'm not 100% sure. So yeah, not a whole lot of security afforded there.
6. I would, with regard to encrypted containers, keep two kinds of data. Most data is large e.g. pdfs etc, but some data is small, a few spreadsheets, some text files etc. The real incriminating evidence is the spreadsheets, your record keeping. Other research stuff isn't illegal to have, it's just freely available information that seems suspicious to be in one place. So, use truecrypt for most data, but use truecrypt and then use steganographic techniques with your records. This means your spreadsheets are not only encrypted, but disguised as pictures or as a tiny segment of a video file. Steganography, is LE's worst nightmare, it ought to be used more often I feel. (you could say you're going real world steganography with your 'rock', ha ha).
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I'm a linux newbie myself, but the more I mess around with it the more I like it. But I understand your frustration, and getting help in a linux forum often means subjecting yourself to some serious snobbery.
There are a lot of linux based distros, and a couple of them are actually quite user friendly. Try Linux Mint- It works pretty much "out of the box", and is crammed full of GUIs such that you may never even need to go root yourself or compile... packages. Kind of like being able to command line the shit out of Windoze if you really want to.
I've had a grand ol' time playing around with Liberte. It's taught me a lot about command line operating systems, yet has enough of a GUI so that learning to use it isn't an excercise in frustration. It's quick as hell to load, and the Midori browser has been far more stable than what I've read about it would lead me to believe. Also, Liberte has some lightweight office tools, a media player, and image viewer pre-installed. It's also a breeze to re-install if you screw it up. In fact, I've mostly taken to using Liberte and Tor for almost everything I do online.
As Pine mentioned, make sure you're using usb 2.0, and maybe try a different flash drive as well. I had the same problem regarding Liberte hanging, and using a different flash drive fixed the problem. I doubt the splash screen has anything to do with it...
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3. Liberte's encryption is 8192 bit. For comparison, military grade encryption is 256 bit. It is also the largest key length possible with the majority of encryption software, so it is good for about a 100 years or so at least. Short of quantum computing, ha ha, but if that is setup, there'll be much bigger problems for the government than cracking your stuff.
you are conflating symmetric and asymmetric encryption algorithms but your point stands, 8192 bit RSA should provide somewhere between long-term protection (up to the year 2040) to the foreseeable future (unless a quantum computer that can implement Shor's algorithm is invented).
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unless a quantum computer that can implement Shor's algorithm is invented
Maybe dwave but not according to these comments.
hxxp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Wave_Systems#Criticism
Umesh Vazirani, a professor at UC Berkeley and one of the founders of quantum complexity theory, made the following criticism:[24]
"Their claimed speedup over classical algorithms appears to be based on a misunderstanding of a paper my colleagues van Dam, Mosca and I wrote on "The power of adiabatic quantum computing." That speed up unfortunately does not hold in the setting at hand, and therefore D-Wave's "quantum computer" even if it turns out to be a true quantum computer, and even if it can be scaled to thousands of qubits, would likely not be more powerful than a cell phone."
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don't know about dwave but I didn't come to that conclusion about Shor's algorithm independently, the ECRYPT folks did: http://www.ecrypt.eu.org/documents/D.SPA.17.pdf
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I wish i had more +karma for you, Q, i really do. Cheers.
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OP:
download the new snapshot. if installing on your usb, ofcourse format and unzip. be sure to right click the setup and open with admin if youre usig win7.
at the first boot screen where you have 3 options (no kms, console) try them all
if all fails press tab at settings screen and do this:
find and replace splash=xxxxx with splash=off
find video=xxxxx and delete it (the whole string)
add in wherever gentoo=xvesa
press enter
good luck
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I've been using Linux since about 1995. I first started with Debian using Kernel Version 1.2. Your having problems with Liberte because it is a fairly new distribution and is specifically designed for security. Any distribution designed specifically for security is not going to be the easiest to use.
Windows has so many holes in it even Microsoft can't keep up with them. It takes them months to correct bugs in their system. In linux they are usually fixed within a few days. Hang in there with Linux. It's way better than Windows. Your not going to learn Linux in detail in a few hours. It'll take a while. If all you want to do is the norm then Linux is no more difficult than windows. But, your not wanting to do the norm. Remember the Mars Lander's software was Linux. It's extremely good at what it does.
Just keep working with it and you'll be rewarded in the end. Good luck!