Is the community interested in cold boot resistance?

[yianni]

Hello,

I have some simple ideas for improving defenses against cold boot attacks that I can present to the Qubes developers.

But, I’m just wondering if people actually care? The last time this was discussed in the forums was 2022. So, if I spend 4 hours writing something up for the developers, is that a good use of my time?

Also, in general, what’s the best place to post technical suggestions for improvement?

Best wishes,
Yianni

[Sks]

Hello, definitely. I would say this OS’s job is to be the most secure on the planet, adding an extra protection wouldnt hurt, although there are other ways to get the encryption key. If someone has acess to your computer it is basically done for, that is why the devs have not made more effort to physical security in my opinion.

[renehoj]

It has been discussed in the last year both on the forum and github.

Xen memory scrubbing does provide some protection against cold boot attacks, and if the default settings are too relaxed, you can force Xen to scrub all memory when a domain is destroyed.

[parulin]

@Sks

I would say this OS’s job is to be the most secure on the planet

It’s only a reasonably secure OS

Edit: that comment was supposed to express some skepticism about @Sks’s answer. Because the following question is legitimate:

@yianni

So, if I spend 4 hours writing something up for the developers, is that a good use of my time?

Now this topic flew away from any planet… That wasn’t my intention.

[Qubie]

@parulin

It’s only a reasonably secure OS

And what OS would you call “the most secure OS from all existent”?

[Qubie]

If you have really good ideas for Qubes security improvements then I would highly recommend you to read this manual. Maybe it will inspire you to make even more improvements for protection from Qubes physical access attacks.

[Qubie]

And yeah, this topic is really in demand. As much as many other security and anonimity related topics. You can at least check out these ones:

Want to hide partition with Qubes on it after creating dual boot set-up

Love it when it turns out that nothing needs to be done and everything is done for us.

Feature Request: Hiding Qubes presence on the computer

I’m using VeraCrypt Hidden System for that… Reading this, you seem to suggest Shufflecake instead! How? Shufflecake is still experiemental! https://shufflecake.net If one would use Shfflecake, they will be known to be a Linux user, because Shufflecake is mainly for Linux (1), and they will be known that they primarily use Hidden System because Shufflecake is made only for Hidden System (2). Using VeraCrypt, you avoid these 2. VeraCrypt is not primarily for hiding, and acutally supports Window…

Feature request: disabling all clearnet update checks during installation process

Many people believe that a secure OS should have built-in tools against cyber threats (I’m not talking about computer threats) Qubes makes it easy to use different online adapetras, and many law-abiding citizens who do not commit crimes, want to work from one computer (for convenience) and engage in “gonzo journalism” through a second adapter that is designed to bypass censorship. In a scenario where qubes calmly goes online to check for updates, qubes was useless for such a journalist, even th…

[OvalZero]

@Qubie

@parulin

It’s only a reasonably secure OS

And what OS would you call “the most secure OS from all existent”?

The only tamperproof computational system (OS and hardware) that exists is the one on Voyager 1, which is now sufficiently difficult for attackers to reach … physically.

[unman]

@Yianni _ Thanks for interest in contributing. It’s a good topic.

Also, in general, what’s the best place to post technical suggestions for improvement?

I recommend mail to qubes-devel, as explained here:
“This list is primarily intended for people who are interested in
contributing to Qubes or who are willing to learn more about its
architecture and implementation.”

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum I speak for myself.

[qubes1]

Actual rage bait hahaha

[Sks]

Voyager 1? You mean the satellite?

[OvalZero]

Yes.

[arkenoi]

Aren’t newer hardware platforms cold boot resistant out of the box (memory encryption with ephemeral key)?