Lightweight Portable Security Is A Portable Linux Distro From The US Department Of Defense

3 responses to “Lightweight Portable Security Is A Portable Linux Distro From The US Department Of Defense”

1. 

   Gary

   July 25, 2011

   Doesn’t help against aphyiscal keyboard logger or network sniffer. The version of software on a CD-ROM is almost certainly going to be out of date and missing security patches.

   Plus most kiosks would prevent booting from a CD-ROM or USB precisely because that bypasses any security on the machine.

   The point of this software is to protect the computer (or hard drive) from infection by the user’s activity, not to hide/protect the user’s activity from a potentially infected computer.

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   1. 

      Stove

      July 25, 2011

      While you’re correct about the software always being behind on patches, the read-only media means that even if your OS is compromised it’ll only last until your next reboot.

      Secondly: They mention a few different tools for assisting encryption. Any data sent over the internet in plaintext will of course be sniffable, but that’s business as usual – you can’t force every site to use https.

      Thirdly: you’re correct about hardware keyloggers, but it also doesn’t block people looking over your shoulder. There’s limits to what an OS can do. It protects you perfectly against software keyloggers which are orders of magnitude more common.

      They’ve put together a simple distro that helps solve a key problem – they only trust software they’ve built themselves.

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2. 

   Chris

   July 25, 2011

   So… they’ve let it out into the public domain eh? And people who are likely to use it are ones who either think they have something to hide or do have something to hide. What are the chances of this having some sort of hidden spyware of its own tucked away somewhere?

   Hang on… what’s that whirring sound. Wha?! It’s a black helicopter. What? No!!!!!!

   [………….]

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