[HN Gopher] Anonymous Tor Phone
___________________________________________________________________
Anonymous Tor Phone
Author : h0ek
Score : 123 points
Date : 2023-05-02 14:11 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (0ut3r.space)
(TXT) w3m dump (0ut3r.space)
| acqbu wrote:
| > we can find some homeless guy, and for bottle of whisky tell
| him to buy it for us in some pawn shop
|
| this and a whole lot more
|
| it's amazing what some of the guys in my area will do for a
| bottle of whisky
|
| I guess you SF-based techies are even more blessed than the rest
| of us
| ceva wrote:
| [flagged]
| joshmarlow wrote:
| Are there any better options than Tor? Can you link to anything
| about explaining/critiquing the anonymity?
| grrdotcloud wrote:
| Graffiti?
|
| My question is always, what are you trying to accomplish? If
| you don't want someone to know who you are, why would anyone
| listen to you? Considering AI, voice and text, how do I know
| I'm talking to you the you I want to talk to?
|
| In the past when I worked for people with questionable ethics
| they would often just schedule a lunch and discussing a noisy
| restaurant their dealings. If they had adversarial contacts,
| they would have lawyers send letters.
|
| Public private keys are great yet there's still no way to
| verify the source if the key is compromised.
|
| I suppose, if I really wanted to send a message to someone, I
| would encode the message, with a shared secret or use of
| language, acting as a signature, and they would know it as
| me.
|
| My family members have verbal and nonverbal cues, noises,
| phrases that will tell them they're in danger or to bring a
| weapon or if they are under duress.
|
| I recently received my text message from an unknown number. I
| knew exactly who it was. I had the context and history
| allowing me to validate that the only person who would
| message me as such is a fellow HN reader.
| johnisgood wrote:
| i2p?
| mtmail wrote:
| I'm interested in your insights (after reading the blog post).
| cosmojg wrote:
| Huh, I hadn't considered that the rise of 5G, and faster internet
| more generally, would make "Tor phones" viable. The cost of using
| Tor as an everyday VPN, on any device, will soon be negligible
| (ignoring the usual server-side shenanigans that Tor users will
| probably have to deal with until Tor becomes more popular and
| more exit nodes come online).
| costco wrote:
| I'm not an expert I think the main barrier to Tor speeds now is
| # of nodes and concentration of nodes (should have more nodes
| outside of OVH, BuyVM, Flokinet and M247...). Worth noting too
| that 5G also makes triangulation substantially more accurate
| due to higher tower density.
|
| Also I feel like the Cloudflare problem and reCAPTCHA hell on
| Tor are stunting Tor adoption and I'm pretty sad about that.
| Higher speeds wouldn't necessarily solve those problems.
| garyfirestorm wrote:
| Just yesterday there was a discussion about location services[1]
| If you connect your phone to a cell network, just by
| triangulation they got your home address...someone also mentioned
| that the phone will connect to nearest towers without a sim for
| 911 services... I guess is there hardware or software that can
| force the cellular modem to connect to a single tower of your
| choice?
|
| [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35779816
| kotaKat wrote:
| Every tower essentially allows an unauthenticated device to log
| on as an 'emergency' user to a special 'emergency' APN and
| grants an IMS connection to the emergency number (112/911/etc).
| See: https://www.sharetechnote.com/html/IMS_SIP_PSAP.html
| ("Emergency Call without Normal Registration")
|
| My CBRS test networks all have their cells configured to
| explicitly _deny_ an emergency bearer request for life-safety
| purposes. As soon as they see the deny they keep moving on to
| the commercial networks.
| kornhole wrote:
| Is it possible to configure a device with usual SIM to deny
| or not connect to PNAS? Any info would be appreciated.
| theK wrote:
| Source selection logic most often is completely in firmware and
| as most antenna firmware are closely kept binary blobs that the
| soc comes preinstalled with.
|
| I would wager to say that, while possible to do, it is
| practically impossible for the average joe unless they own a
| Librem 5 which afaik is the only one with an open source
| antenna firmware.
| moremetadata wrote:
| [dead]
| [deleted]
| loufe wrote:
| I sincerely doubt this will go anywhere. I think any serious
| options will be shut down. Consider this option a couple years
| ago:
|
| https://insightcrime.org/news/brief/canadian-company-custom-...
| zgk7iqea wrote:
| So in summary:
|
| - you unlocked your bootloader w/o re-locking it again - insecure
|
| - you used a phone that doesn't receive OEM updates anymore -
| insecure
|
| - you use firefox over tor: no sandbox, very unique fingerprint
|
| - all of the device's traffic is routed over tor - any
| authentication on a non-privacy service compromises your
| anonymity
|
| I don't think this is a good setup.
| mouzogu wrote:
| - all of the device's traffic is routed over tor - any
| authentication on a non-privacy service compromises your
| anonymity
|
| how does it compromise anonymity if you sign in to a burner
| gmail account over tor?
| zgk7iqea wrote:
| It doesn't. I think it's clear that this only is a problem
| when using accounts associated with you.
| costco wrote:
| > - all of the device's traffic is routed over tor - any
| authentication on a non-privacy service compromises your
| anonymity
|
| Wouldn't this would depend on if you had a stream isolation
| setup? Pretty sure Tails/Tor Browser do this, so you can have a
| signed in Facebook tab and another tab open and the two won't
| be linked. I don't think the guide here accounts for that
| though.
| zgk7iqea wrote:
| Yes that is possible, but not with setup described.
| [deleted]
| Cheeeetah wrote:
| - Unlock bootloader as phone manufacturers should not be
| trusted. Even if the ROMs manufacturers provide are open-
| source, the firmwares are usually not.
|
| - Unlocking bootloader also makes the phone receive secure
| updates again.
|
| - Firefox is a great browser that can resist fingerprints. The
| sandbox function on Android should be achieved by restrictions
| on permissions and storage isolations.
|
| - Traffic over Tor is also much better than just over
| telecommunicator. A small fraction of non-privacy nodes is also
| not a problem as routes are always changed, and how can a
| organize contorl most nodes?
| ewoodrich wrote:
| I recently installed GrapheneOS on an old Pixel and
| recommended practice was to relock the bootloader after
| unlocking it and installing a custom OS, which is supported
| on Pixels.
| zgk7iqea wrote:
| An unlocked bootloader makes the phone vastly more insecure
| (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35790499). Phone
| firmware cannot be fully open-source nowadays due to
| manufacturer restrictions. Even the most open-source Android
| fork will still have to include binary blobs from e.g. modem
| manufacturers.
|
| Additionally, the updates that the forked OS provides don't
| include firmware updates for essential parts like the modem
| (this is also the reason why phone updates are not available
| in the first place). So it's essentially a security theatre.
|
| Firefox doesn't use per-site isolation, doesn't use process
| sandboxing and - on top of that has a JIT, so there's W^X
| violations. Normal app sandboxing via Android permissions is
| not sufficient for something as complex as a browser. The
| potential for possible exploits inherently is massive. Other
| browsers (chromium-based) like Vanadium have very
| sophisticated sandboxing, so there's no reason to use
| something inferior.
|
| Traffic over tor is good, but shouldn't be used with
| authenticated services, as it deanonymizes your connection.
| Instead, it should only be used for specific
| (unauthenticated) actions, like browsing news.
| kornhole wrote:
| As long as you keep device in your possession with a quick
| option to wipe it, I believe that mitigates the unlocked
| bootloader. Graphene locks the bootloader as a more secure
| option.
|
| I tried Invizible Pro and do not see option for split
| tunnelling. I suppose Orbot may be a better choice if
| authentication to one of those services is needed.
| zgk7iqea wrote:
| An unlocked bootloader disables verified Boot, which makes
| your phone vulnerable to rollback attacks.
|
| In doing so, it also disables integrity checks, thus making
| persistence (even without rollback) a lot easier for a
| potential attacker.
|
| So your phone becomes a lot more vulnerable to all kinds of
| attacks, not just physical ones.
|
| See also: the Android Documentation for verified boot (https:
| //source.android.com/docs/security/features/verifiedbo...)
| realusername wrote:
| This only works if you trust the ROM though, otherwise I'd
| say it's even worse than no protection since it can prevent
| you to clean-up the device.
| zgk7iqea wrote:
| If you can't trust your OS, trying to anonymize it is
| useless.
|
| Verified boot doesn't prevent you cleaning up the device.
| Modern android phones have wonderfully sophisticated per-
| file disk encryption.
|
| In pixels, the decryption key is stored in a secure
| enclave (Titan M). If you want to wipe the device safely,
| you can just reset the OS. (This deletes the decryption
| key from the secure enclave which turns all user data on
| the user data partition into random junk).
|
| GrapheneOS for example gets all of these things right. It
| is possible to make your phone secure, but not by
| permanently unlocking the bootloader and rooting the
| device.
| realusername wrote:
| > If you can't trust your OS, trying to anonymize it is
| useless.
|
| Well yeah, welcome to the modern smartphone era. Those
| protections are useless or counter-productive because the
| base ROM has already spyware backed into it.
|
| I don't know why some people consider a chinese no-name
| pre-installed rom more secured than lineage os but that's
| not how it works.
|
| > In pixels, the decryption key is stored in a secure
| enclave (Titan M). If you want to wipe the device safely,
| you can just reset the OS. (This wipes the decryption key
| from the secure enclave which turns all user data on the
| user data partition into random junk.
|
| None of that matters if your data is just sent to Google
| anyways.
| zgk7iqea wrote:
| > Well yeah, welcome to the modern smartphone era. Those
| protections are useless or counter-productive because the
| base ROM has already spyware backed into it.
|
| If you assume this to be correct, then there's no point
| in attempting to make your phone private. Privacy isn't
| possible without security.
|
| > None of that matters if your data is just sent to
| Google anyways.
|
| when you use a custom ROM, that's not necessarily true.
| But using a custom ROM doesn't necessarily mean you have
| to permanently unlock your bootloader, so that argument
| doesn't make sense.
| realusername wrote:
| > If you assume this to be correct, then there's no point
| in attempting to make your phone private. Privacy isn't
| possible without security.
|
| You have it the other way around, security starts with
| privacy at its absolute minimum. If data is sent to a
| third party every time you tap something on the phone,
| you are using an insecure phone, regardless of what
| complex hardware they are using.
|
| > But using a custom ROM doesn't necessarily mean you
| have to permanently unlock your bootloader, so that
| argument doesn't make sense.
|
| True, depends on the phone though, some of them cannot be
| locked again and there's no way to completely fix those
| phones with a better ROM.
| zgk7iqea wrote:
| I disagree. You can't keep data away from others when it
| isn't safe. Security doesn't necessarily imply privacy
| (as demonstrated by your argument), but making something
| private is impossible without making it secure. How can
| you hide something in your house when it doesn't have a
| lock and anyone can just walk in? Likewise, how is your
| phone private if, say anyone can unlock it?
|
| > True, depends on the phone though, some of them cannot
| be locked again and there's no way to completely fix
| those phones with a better ROM.
|
| Then you shouldn't use those phones for a secure setup. I
| think we can agree on that. But the author of the article
| used a phone that is capable of locking the bootloader
| with alternate ROMs.
| realusername wrote:
| > How can you hide something in your house when it
| doesn't have a lock and anyone can just walk in?
| Likewise, how is your phone private if, say anyone can
| unlock it?
|
| Security requires privacy. A phone without privacy is
| insecure by design, insecure because it leaks data.
|
| And the biggest danger to consumers nowadays isn't a
| bootrom exploit but that their location, card payments
| and data profile is sent to advertisers.
| bitL wrote:
| Isn't it better to have a bunch of relay phones glued to random
| cars and making calls via them?
| h0ek wrote:
| Hahah, awesome idea. In the past I wanted to stick phones to
| the trees in the random forest and made my own onion mobile
| phone network. But cars are better because moving all the time.
| bitL wrote:
| When I think about it, rental e-scooters would be probably
| even better.
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| We used to joke that a drone mesh network to a local Starbucks
| was the best opsec.
| jancsika wrote:
| Even better-- do a cron job for the requests you want to make
| on the end-point phone.
|
| Glue _that_ to a car, turn it on, and take off.
|
| After a long enough time that the battery has died, ride your
| skateboard up to retrieve your anon filez.
| h0ek wrote:
| Thanks all for great comments. I am glad that this silly article
| made such a lot of bad and good ideas. So many anger and so funny
| stuff. And most important so many great suggestions and points to
| discuss that I didn't address. Please remember that this is just
| an article and not a recipe for being totally anonymous, and that
| each person can accept, or not some risk. I showed my way. Which
| is not best, but works for me. I am not a genius or person who
| tells you how you should act or do stuff. But I was judged by
| many. Its funny how things in the internet works and how quickly
| people says opinions, good and bad and even shitty. And sometimes
| how seriously take everything :) it's always big wave of good
| feedback mixed with hate when some of my article get on main page
| of hacker news :) I will review all comments and update article
| in next two weeks with all good ideas. Thank you all. Even people
| who wish me death by burning at the stake. Lol.
| pierat wrote:
| How are you hiding the fact that you have a transmitter uniquely
| signing and encrypting a unique certificate (sim) along with your
| serial of device (IMEI)?
|
| And there's the whole cell baseband has root to your phone issue.
|
| This feels like a lost cause, TBH if you use cell providers.
|
| Now this could be useful with wifi calling and anonymous voip
| services. But using Tor is destined to leave you in the internet
| shitcan, primarily thanks to ilk like cloudflare.
| [deleted]
| itscrush wrote:
| The article is worth an honest read, the author states they are
| not using sim in this case.
| yunohn wrote:
| > How are you hiding the fact
|
| > I resigned totally from using phone as phone itself, I have
| no physical number, or sim card, and I can only communicate
| securely using various channels like apps or emails.
|
| Honestly, sometimes you should read the article.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > How are you hiding the fact that you have a transmitter
| uniquely signing and encrypting a unique certificate (sim)
| along with your serial of device (IMEI)?
|
| The page doesn't want to load for me right now, but that may or
| may not be a problem depending on their threat model. If none
| of the things you're connecting to can see anything but a tor
| connection, and the cell network can see exactly where you are
| and who you are but not what you're talking to, how much of a
| problem is that?
|
| > And there's the whole cell baseband has root to your phone
| issue.
|
| So use one of the modems that just connects to the main
| processor over USB. I see this repeated a lot, but this
| particular problem is entirely solvable.
| errantmind wrote:
| I've used both LineageOS and GrapheneOS and the latter would have
| been my choice for security purposes as its entire focus is on
| privacy and security.
| bitL wrote:
| How does GrapheneOS help with broadband chip firmware bypassing
| whatever it wants to prevent? All cellphones are rooted by
| default, just not by their owners.
| h0ek wrote:
| I need to take a look and test GrapheneOS. Thanks for comment.
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| The only downside is: extremely limited device support by
| design (ease of support).
|
| Has tonnes of hardening though.
| costco wrote:
| A 2022 iPhone SE with an anonymous eSim like
| https://silent.link/, an MDM profile that disables most of the
| things
| [here](https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/restrictions-
| for-...), a long alphanumeric password, Signal/some other secure
| data only messenger app with auto-deleting messages used solely
| for communication, and an OS that you update regularly is
| probably better than this. But I like that you wrote out
| everything descriptively and most of the advice is good.
|
| - Rooting is definitely ill-advised but you note this
|
| - I would not trust the security of most Android phones against
| phone unlock kits like Cellebrite
| kornhole wrote:
| Is there a way to make an Iphone anonymous? TMK you must always
| log in with an Apple ID. Information including location is
| always sent to the biggest corporation in the world.
| ldehaan wrote:
| Haha "Anonymous" to your neighbor maybe, if they don't work for
| 5Is or a 3 letter agency, or Google, or Facebook, or the ccp or
| ... tor is compromised, you didn't Not get caught, you're not a
| target yet.
| costco wrote:
| People who have used Tor who have been deanonymized in every
| single case that we are aware of made other mistakes ("altoid",
| "pimp_alex_91@hotmail.com", etc) or the vulnerability was in an
| outdated version of Tor Browser (basically Firefox). Of course
| you can say there was parallel construction, maybe there was in
| some cases, but if they didn't make those other mistakes there
| would be no case that could be brought against them because no
| one is going to be convicted on the basis of some probabilistic
| attack against Tor that the government doesn't want to reveal
| to begin with.
| lallysingh wrote:
| Yeah of course it is. And your phone mic is always listening.
| lnsru wrote:
| How do you think Siri works? I have a hint to you: it does
| not scan your brain waves.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| You're the second person in this thread to claim that Tor is
| compromised, without giving any explanation. This isn't
| productive discussion. Care to elaborate in what exact manner
| is Tor compromised? Bonus points for not hitting anything from
| the known list of speculative attacks. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Speculative_Tor_Attacks
| DethNinja wrote:
| It is just common sense.
|
| Traffic correlation: All the large state actors are well
| capable of recording every single IP transaction between
| devices. You can create detailed correlation maps from these
| transactions. Considering that this wouldn't cost much for
| state actors to implement, one has to assume such traffic
| correlation systems currently exists.
|
| Node compromise: It costs less than 5 dollars a month to
| create a TOR node. There are currently ~8000 TOR nodes/relays
| in existence. That is 40k USD per month (at most). Do you
| really believe state actors can't afford 40k USD per month to
| compromise the vast majority of TOR nodes? Even a single
| millionaire can compromise the vast majority of TOR nodes.
|
| Another problem is that TOR is an outdated privacy tech.
| considering modern state actor capabilities. Mixer networks +
| network jitter is necessary to protect privacy at this stage,
| yet no such project exists yet.
|
| TOR is not a good option for privacy. Currently only valid
| option for privacy is external Wi-Fi jacking and ensuring you
| don't send any private info like CPUID.
|
| Or alternatively, you can hack routers/computers and put your
| own TOR nodes in them, then you can only use these known
| nodes.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| Common sense is not the same as actual understanding. Tor
| is not limited to exit nodes, the most valuable thing is
| the onion network with millions of users. Both are being
| actively monitored for anomalies by the devs, with multiple
| thwarted attempts to subvert it in the past.
|
| _> TOR is not a good option for privacy. Currently only
| valid option for privacy is external Wi-Fi jacking and
| ensuring you don 't send any private info like CPUID._
|
| What is known for sure is that high profile drug dealers
| are using it without being caught for years. All known
| cases are related to either poor OPSEC, client/server
| 0-days, classic real-life investigations, or known attacks
| Tor can't protect from (correlation of the large amounts of
| onion server traffic, for example, which is not that easy
| as you make it sound). It is entirely possible that
| somebody was caught using unknown or unavoidable attacks,
| but no such case is known for sure at this time.
|
| _> Mixer networks + network jitter is necessary to protect
| privacy at this stage, yet no such project exists yet._
|
| Tor does use packet shuffling and delays to protect from
| timing attacks to an extent. It's less advanced than I2P
| which also mixes the traffic, but has a much larger client
| pool and a unified browser used by nearly everyone, which
| provides users with huge buckets to blend into. There are
| also several delayed onion message services available.
|
| Of course it is susceptible to certain kinds of attacks you
| have to be aware about. This isn't the same as "Tor doesn't
| provide anonymity" or "Tor is compromised".
| m4jor wrote:
| Just more FUD being spewed from someone who knows nothing
| about Tor.
|
| It's Tor not TOR FYI.
|
| https://support.torproject.org/about/why-is-it-called-tor/
|
| > Note: even though it originally came from an acronym, Tor
| is not spelled "TOR". Only the first letter is capitalized.
| In fact, we can usually spot people who haven't read any of
| our website (and have instead learned everything they know
| about Tor from news articles) by the fact that they spell
| it wrong.
|
| We all know which one you fall under.
|
| > Node compromise: It costs less than 5 dollars a month to
| create a TOR node. There are currently ~8000 TOR
| nodes/relays in existence. That is 40k USD per month (at
| most). Do you really believe state actors can't afford 40k
| USD per month to compromise the vast majority of TOR nodes?
| Even a single millionaire can compromise the vast majority
| of TOR nodes.
|
| As someone who has ran a Tor exit node for 5+ years, lolol
| at this statement. Pure ignorance.
| anonlamb wrote:
| [dead]
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > tor is compromised
|
| Is it?
| garyfirestorm wrote:
| [1] https://threatpost.com/motion-filed-asking-fbi-to-
| disclose-t... [2]
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34412080
| m4jor wrote:
| None of those have to do with vulns in Tor. Try again.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| These are just 0-days in the Tor Browser/Firefox, not Tor.
| While in practice Tor Browser cannot be decoupled from the
| network (it provides users with large enough crowd to blend
| into), it can be surrounded with additional security
| layers. If you're a high-value target worthy of wasting a
| 0-day on you, running Tor Browser on a general-purpose
| system might be a bad idea; there are distros like Whonix
| specifically tailored for secure communication - they are
| far less vulnerable to this kind of attack.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| The #1 thing you can do right now is to add a application based
| firewall to your android phone. It emulates a VPN so all traffic
| is routed through it, then implements firewall rules based on
| application, IP address, etc. You can whitelist, blacklist, etc.
| Most of my apps have zero network access and don't need it. For
| those that do - I block them from sending to advertising domains.
| Imperfect but better than nothing.
|
| Android conspicuously doesn't include 'network access' as a
| permission, for what I can only assume is nefarious reasons.
| There's no reason my Calculator app needs to phone home anywhere.
|
| The problem though really lies in the network. LTE is GPS
| trackable inherently. If you want to eliminate that problem, a
| Pager can work quite well if you are interested in receive only.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| LineageOS, GrapheneOS and CalyxOS all have network and firewall
| restrictions on applications. You can even limit by certain
| networks (5G, Wifi, etc..)
|
| It's nice to be able to sandbox an app so it can't do anything,
| especially call home.
| kornhole wrote:
| InviZible Pro mentioned here provides such firewall in case
| your OS does not have one built in.
| grrdotcloud wrote:
| Unless you can confirm the keyboard is not compromised, no
| amount of security matters.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Well that's silly, since we know the entire baseband is
| compromised anyway. In reality it's all about your threat
| model.
|
| I refuse put the NSA in my threat model. If we get to that
| point as a business, we're going to have warrants blowing us
| up, secret fisa courts threatening our livelyhoods, and so
| forth.
|
| However - there's no reason we should allow all advertisers
| to track us just because we are worried about the NSA
| fsflover wrote:
| You may be interested in Precursor, for which you indeed can
| confirm that manually: https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-
| kosagi/precursor. (But it has no modem.)
| zirgs wrote:
| GrapheneOS has a network access permission.
| zgk7iqea wrote:
| Apps can circumvent these "firewalls" quite easily via
| IPC/Intents.
|
| For example, if you block facebook with a firewall, it can
| still send an intent to the download manager to make network
| connections.
|
| (see https://madaidans-
| insecurities.github.io/android.html#firewa...)
| flangola7 wrote:
| GrapheneOS is working on a permission to block that too
| zgk7iqea wrote:
| GrapheneOS alreasy has such a permission. I use it for Apps
| that shouldn't require internet access, like my keyboard.
| flangola7 wrote:
| The current network permission does not block IPC
| nani8ot wrote:
| > Android conspicuously doesn't include 'network access' as a
| permission, for what I can only assume is nefarious reasons.
| There's no reason my Calculator app needs to phone home
| anywhere.
|
| I know that some Android ROM's don't allow blocking all network
| access (only mobile data). But LineageOS, CalyxOS and
| GrapheneOS all allow blocking all/VPN/mobile network access.
| Forbo wrote:
| GrapheneOS has a network permission that you can toggle.
|
| I'm still hoping for an application firewall that will also let
| me use my real VPN, or hoping that my VPN provider will
| integrate this functionality directly so I don't have to choose
| between one or the other. I find trying to do everything over
| Tor quite limiting due to the number of web admins blocking it
| entirely. Even VPNs are starting to get frequently blocked,
| unfortunately.
| ementally wrote:
| You are probably better off with GrapheneOS + Orbot.
|
| Here is the list of issues I have with this blog.
|
| 1) LineageOS
| https://github.com/beerisgood/Smartphone_Security#custom-rom...
|
| 2) Riseup email, they have a mailing list, which apparently makes
| them unable to add a proper DMARC policy. As a result, anyone can
| spoof an email at any @riseup.net address, and the email would
| show up as a legitimate email on most recipient mail servers and
| they do not encrypt the data at rest per-user with the user's own
| keys like ProtonMail.
|
| 3) Session is great but lacks PFS (perfect forward secrecy)
|
| 4) bromite usually behind in updates which leaves it vulnerable
| to exploits
|
| btw, On Android, Firefox is still less secure than Chromium-based
| alternatives: Mozilla's engine, GeckoView, has yet to support
| site isolation or enable isolatedProcess.
| JackGreyhat wrote:
| In your opinion, what browser would be better than Bromite?
| Maybe Vanadium or Fennec?
| ementally wrote:
| Brave https://www.privacyguides.org/en/mobile-browsers/#brave
|
| About Vanadium, it is mostly focused on security, and it
| takes advantage of OS hardening to do that. Brave is a fine
| choice, and it does offer fingerprinting protections that
| Vanadium doesn't. It's up to you which you'll choose for you
| use case, but Vanadium takes the cake when it comes to a
| robust, secure and minimal browser
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Tunneling all traffic through Tor can be risky, especially if
| you're using exit nodes to access clearweb applications. The
| traffic patterns of your tunnel will be significantly different
| from most Tor traffic (browsers, exclusively) which can help
| pinpoint your phone if the authorities are wiretapping your
| connection. Allegedly, the various law enforcement agencies
| around the world operate a significant amount of exit nodes and
| if they can pinpoint a particular traffic pattern, they may be
| able to trace it back home.
|
| I would be more selective with my traffic. Use Tor Browser for
| browser traffic, but keep sending Signal/Session/whatever through
| normal means. That makes your phone stand out less. Consider
| using a decent VPN like Mullvad, that should provide enough
| plausible deniability not to stand out.
| Cheeeetah wrote:
| The routes of Tor traffic are dynamically changed, so a node
| can just pinpoint the pattern during a small period of time. So
| compared to a VPN which may monitor you constantly, Tor should
| be preferred.
| conradev wrote:
| If you think your traffic is not being monitored over Tor,
| then you have thought incorrectly. It can be monitored at the
| exit node no problem, and is likely monitored _more_ closely
| than other endpoints.
|
| Your only hope is either not using exit nodes (and only using
| hidden services), or encrypting all of your traffic _and_
| making sure different apps/services use different Tor
| circuits. This does not happen by default, meaning all of
| your traffic is mixed together. It doesn't matter that it
| migrates routes every so often.
|
| Exit nodes don't know where the traffic is coming from,
| until, of course, you accidentally access your personal
| domain name over HTTPS just by visiting it, which leaks
| through SNI. Hope you don't host your own services!
| goodpoint wrote:
| Tunneling all traffic through Tor is beyond risky. It's
| absolutely wrong.
|
| Not only applications can leak all sort of data in cleartext,
| but your traffic is visible to exit nodes, and some are
| malicious.
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