How unsafe is it really to order on a windows 8 machine? (Obviously still utilizing tor and pgp)


Comments


[6 Points] galaxyandspace:

  1. There is an indeterminable probability that Windows and Windows 8 has a backdoor for organizations to use. We are also unable to determine if Microsoft is under any gag orders concerning the Windows Operating Systems.
  2. Windows is closed source. It's security is only assessable by Microsoft, or anyone Microsoft allows to see the code.
  3. Windows is not at all designed with anonymity in mind.


[2 Points] None:

[deleted]


[2 Points] iLoveDNM:

Even though I find short posts without background sources, I'm gonna do it anyway.

Install Ubuntu on the machine. You can even dual boot it so you can still use windows for everyday things, and you can use ubuntu with the tor browser bundle and you'll be a whole shitload safer. Ubuntu is very well maintained, constantly updated, and as long as you update your core version every year or so (I think it's once every 4 years if you stick to the LTS versions) you get free updates for life. No charge, no catch. Very secure, very user friendly, very amazing. Seriously, try it out and you'll be so much better of it's crazy.

Oh, and on an unrelated note, check out the browser extension AdBlock Pro or Adblock Plus, they're basically the same thing. Just pick whichever had more positive reviews for your OS. It identifies all of the advertising on the pages you visit real time and just strips it away. It makes web browsing a much greater pleasure.


[1 Points] None:

As safe as bear hunting with a switch.


[1 Points] baconlover24:

Hidden.


[1 Points] throwahooawayyfoe:

just don't order any large quantities of anything. that's all i have to say.


[1 Points] goodluckbrah:

I hear people bring this up quite often, and almost everyone mentions the possibility of LE backdoors. I think a more pressing concern is how easy it is for Windows machines to get a virus, which compromises the whole system.

When running tor you want all your system traffic to go through tor, else you can compromise your anonymity, and even if you route through tor on many of these programs you'll still compromise it because a lot(read: torrent does it, and a lot of others) send your real ip address through for the return traffic. Basically letting an exit node ping you.

With more viruses than you know what to do with, and background processes that the system won't even show you, this makes windows machines leak info like a faucet. Remember, LE isn't the only person after you.

As well, since window's file permissions are fucked when/if your computers are seized it takes LE 5 minutes to fuck you. At least make them try.

Final point: Linux rulz windows drools


[1 Points] II-NataYmleg:

Get a used Thinkpad laptop (they are all Linux certified) and install this.

The default repositories don't contain the latest Tor. You need to add the Tor project's official repo:

Click on the updater icon (I use the German KDE edition so things or names may differ a bit). In the menu select edit -> software sources. Input root password when asked. In the window go to the additional sources tab and click on "add package source". Copy and paste:

deb http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org trusty main

On the maintenance tab, click "fix mergelist problems" just to be sure nothing messes up. Then in the main window, hit "refresh".

edit: Then you can install the "torsocks" package via the software installer app and use 127.0.0.1:9050 as a SOCKS proxy.


[-2 Points] Kazaa99:

There has been discovered a flaw/bug that makes it possible for an attacker to gain access to a computer and remotely control it. Now this is a thing that is discovered pretty much every month in windows.. This "new thing" that is rediscovered is a driver which actually has been in every windows version since win95. Its a dll file that is involved with encryption, and what has people flying up is that inside there is a key called NSAKEY. So far it hasn't been released what this key is for, which makes people a lot more suspicious of course. However since this has been there since win95, you could ask yourself how much NSA would be interested in windows back then. It could be a coincidence that it is called NSAKEY, so far we don't know. But my guess is that if a backdoor has been present so long, some highly skilled computergeek/whitehat hacker probably could have found this long ago. I mean if a hacker found a way to control any computer he wanted without having to write countless of stupid phishing sites, then yikes! (NB!: the "facts" I write here is just how I read those published articles I found. I could of course easily have misunderstood or mistaken some of it. I'm not an OS expert, just generally computer smart).