Tinfoil Hat Linux
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BSD license[2] Software: Original licences | |
| Official website | tinfoilhat.shmoo.com |
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Tinfoil Hat Linux (THL) is a compact
The logo of Tinfoil Hat is
The Shmoo Group website says "It started as a secure, single floppy, bootable Linux distribution for storing PGP keys and then encrypting, signing, and wiping files. At some point, it became an exercise in over-engineering."[1]
Security features
Tinfoil Hat uses a number of measures to defeat hardware and software surveillance methods like keystroke logging, video camera, and TEMPEST:
- Encryption — public key cryptographysoftware is included in THL.
- Data retrieval — All temporary files are created on an encrypted RAM diskthat is destroyed on shutdown. Even the GPG key file information can be stored encrypted on the floppy.
- Keystroke monitoring — THL has GPG Grid, a wrapper for GPG that lets you use a video game-style character entry system instead of typing in your passphrase. Keystroke loggers get a set of grid points, instead of a passphrase.
- Power usage and other side-channel attacks— Under the Paranoid options, a copy of GPG runs in the background generating keys and encrypting random documents. This makes it harder to determine when real encryption is taking place.
- Even reading the screen over the user's shoulder is difficult when Tinfoil Hat is switched to paranoid mode, which sets the screen to a very low contrast.
Applications
THL can be used on most modern
Tinfoil Hat Linux requires one to work in a text-only environment in Linux, electing to start users with a Bourne shell, the text editor vi, and with no graphical user interface. It uses BusyBox instead of the normal Util-Linux, the GNU Core Utilities (formerly known as FileUtils, ShellUtils, and TextUtils), and other common Unix tools. Tinfoil Hat also offers the GNU nano text editor.
See also
- List of LiveDistros
- Damn Small Linux
- Security-focused operating system
- Tin Hat Linux
- OpenBSD
References
- ^ a b "Shmoo website - projects page". Retrieved April 21, 2024.
- ^ FAQ (archived)
- Piper, Scott; Davis, Mark; Shenoi, Sujeet (2006). "Countering Hostile Forensic Techniques". IFIP Advances in Information and Communication. 222 (Advances in Digital Forensics II. DigitalForensics 2006): 79–90. .
- Pomeroy, Blake; Chen, Weifeng (2015). "Mobile OS security: Current situation and future directions". 2015 IEEE International Conference on Electro/Information Technology (EIT). Vol. 2015. Dekalb, IL: IEEE. pp. 230–235. S2CID 33166863.
- Kucan, Berislav (Mar 2002). "Paranoid II - Revenge of the TinFoil Hat". AUUGN. AUUG, Inc. pp. 19–22. Retrieved 2023-07-02.
- "Tinfoil Hat Linux: A Distribution for the Paranoid". Slashdot. SlashdotMedia. February 19, 2002. Archived from the original on 2023-07-02. Retrieved 2023-07-02.
External links
- Official website
- Evilmutant.com article about Tinfoil Hat Linux, with screenshots
- Another evilmutant.com article giving links to other media which picked up the previous article
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