Comment by gfalcao | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gfalcao | Hacker News Reader

My first thought after reading the article: develoepers NEED to learn to use firewalls such as LuLu(https://objective-see.org/products/lulu.html) to get interactive dialogs asking whether any given binary can access any given internet address whether it is a domain address or IP address (which can seem even shadier).

I am an Emacs user but every time I have tried a new editor, including VS Code or VSCodium I blocked access to remote addressed which were prompted to me even though I did not neither authorize extension download nor extension download.

I think it would have been even funny for devs trying out for code challenges while using "interactive" firewalls such as LuLu, then catching the shadiness and blocking access right up.

This really is the simplest path to somewhat decent security, and alongside it you may catch some programs doing requests that are fine for security but you'd rather it not do because of privacy.

The line between privacy and security is very blurry. Consider this: if Microsoft exfiltrates your keystrokes, it's a privacy violation, but if a random person does the same thing then it's a security violation. You might say that the random person is more likely to use it against you, but then the car insurance companies mining your driving data absolutely do use it against some customers, but that's generally considered to be a privacy violation rather than a security violation.

> Consider this: if Microsoft exfiltrates your keystrokes, it's a privacy violation, but if a random person does the same thing then it's a security violation

No, it's a security violation no matter who does it.

That's adjacent to my point. I'm criticizing how I see these words used.

No, we really need to stop using weasel words and call it like it is: Windows is malware. Microsoft has illegally hacked billions of computers, and gets away with it by being a big company and by the world having gotten complacent with big companies constantly hacking everyone they can.

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