Update I have come to a decision. Thank you to all who contributed suggestions. Please feel free to keep the discussion going to help others.

      • Lemongrab@lemmy.one
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        11 hours ago

        Interesting. I have a vastly divergent opinion on linux for mobile, mostly that it is not secure. This is true for Desktop linux but is more important considering the threat model necessary for mobile device Security.

        • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.com
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          7 hours ago

          Feel free to elaborate. Everything I have read over my life (couple thousand pages I guess) suggestd that linux can be a lot more secure than windows and ios.

          • Lemongrab@lemmy.one
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            3 hours ago

            Linux is not security hardened. It does not properly sandbox applications (and there is nothing as secure as android’s sandboxing on linux). In fact, most linux package managers do not feature any sandboxing of applications, period. Linux does not implement verified boot. It does not harden against physical port attacks. It does not use a hardened memory allocator. Privilege escalation is simple because of how straightforward it is to compromise a wheel user (sudo user). Linux does not harden it kernel flags by default. Alpine (and most linux package managers) are not secure (aka does not pass the TUF threat model). Most linux distros dont feature a read-only root filesystem, which would help to improve security. Also, Systemd is a bloated init system and has a massive attack surface. GNU’s tooling is also bloated and freebsd’s would make a good alternative (like what is done by Chimera Linux)

            Here are some readings on linux security:
            Article by one of the Whonix Devs https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/linux.html and also are hardening guide from them https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/guides/linux-hardening.html
            Wiki page of Whonix considering many linux distros for whether they make a good base for Whonix’s security distro: https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Dev/Operating_System#Alpine_Linux
            Kicksecure’s wiki: https://www.kicksecure.com/wiki/Documentation

            Here are some Security hardened distros (Note that none meet the threat model for a mobile phone OS as they dont feature verified boot):
            https://www.kicksecure.com
            https://github.com/secureblue/secureblue
            https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/modules/profiles/hardened.nix.

            Special mention which isnt hardened but has great potential: https://chimera-linux.org/

            • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.com
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              5 minutes ago

              You do realize that this is bullshit, right?

              Its typical fearmongering (in fact the same article too) that I have been sent a ton of times by low tech users that fanboy for graphene.

              There is no such thing as „physical port attacks“. It also works very different on phones then on computers. You can for example use i2c on an iphone to crack it open which somewhat straightforward to do but still has zero implications for daily use. The linux apps are desktop apps and as such dont have any chance to get through all of the open source community‘s eyes undetected.

              Its a completely backwards take that assumes using bad faith software written in the dark by proprietary vendors which just isnt real.