Not sure if this fits here…
An OPSEC community would probably say no, so I probably don’t need to ask in those communities. But I’m curious about a (digital) pirate’s perspective on this issue…
I mean, the sources listed here are supposedly “safe” right? But honestly, how much would you trust these “safe” sources?
When doing sensitive tasks like banking or filing taxes, do you:
- Use a different OS on the same machine? (Dualboot)
- Or put the pirated content inside a virtual machine?
- Or just use a completely separate computer?
And since PC is much different than a Smartphone:
- Would the extra sandboxing on Smartphones make pirating games on a Smartphone much safer compared to on a PC? (Not that there are much mobile games worth playing, just curious)
(PC in this context referring to all personal computers, regardless of OS)
And last question:
- Non-installed/non-executable files such as .mp4 .mkv .mp3 .pdf .epub, are mostly safe right? I mean, you are using another program to opening it, not executing a file, there aren’t much attack vectors as long as the video player / ebook viewer is up to date right? (Or am I understanding it wrong?)
Any questionable software I have is coming up on 4 years old now, most of it is older than that. I move them to a new machine every time I upgrade, simply because I don’t trust torrents anymore.
Honestly, I don’t trust PDFs anymore unless they’re from places I know are “safe” which kind of sucks because I’ve been getting back into RC as a hobby and it’s hard to find non-pdf plans. I prefer vector files, but I’m having to try my luck with jpg and png files.
A lot of the programs I used to use have been surpassed by current FOSS projects, and I’ve been replacing them as I can. Finding an open source laser engraver program that isn’t shit is proving difficult.
Most PDF attacks target Adobe Acrobat and Reader. A few probably target Foxit or other minor players. If your PDF reader doesn’t support stuff like macros, you’re probably safe.
You might also be able to use something like ghostscript to manipulate PDFs and strip the fancy features.
Ah. Well that’s a relief, I removed foxit, and never had anything Adobe.
I open the pdfs in inkscape to pull the vector files and save them as an svg. There’s probably a simpler way, but this allows me to open the vector in a lot more programs like my laser software and my CAD programs.
The only pdfs that get printed like a normal person are small rc planes and the files are from trusted sources.
It’s nice to know I can do a little extra to protect myself from pdf based attacks though, thanks for the info!