Contents
vouch
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.
Contents
-
QubesOS – A reasonably secure operating system
I've been using Qubes for the past 2 years while going to school, and I found it really fun and helpful. A lot of professors had me download random closed source software from random websites during the pandemic, and it was easier to download it to a VM than to convince them about Free Software. More than that though it's been really helpful just for my own workflow. I can hit a keybind and start working from essentially a fresh linux install. It's easier to stay on task when each VM is designed to only do one kind of task. It's also nice having debian, fedora, windows, kali, and whonix all easily accessible on the same machine.
The main sticking point for me is that Qubes is reasonably secure from _myself_. I make mistakes. I first started using linux with an Ubuntu install that I broke a year later because I accidentally added in a space when typing `rm -rf ~/Arduino` which made it `rm -rf ~ /Arduino`. On Qubes I can `sudo rm -rf /` on the VM I'm using right now and not break a sweat. I have a keybind to spawn a disposable "airgapped" VM to deal with sensitive or untrusted data, and it helps knowing that even if I mess up with whatever I'm doing, the VM will keep everything reasonably contained.
Some cool things that Qubes has outside of just VMs are its features enabled by the communication between VMs. Notable ones are Split GPG (https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/split-gpg/) which let you use a VM as if it were a smartcard for GPG and Split SSH (https://github.com/Qubes-Community/Contents/blob/master/docs...) which let you isolate your private SSH keys from your VM running your SSH client.
There are some sticking points around Qubes. For instance, I use Tailscale to connect my computers to each other from anywhere. Tailscale's install scripts add their keys to my VM's package manager for updates and installs. The proper way to do this in Qubes is to clone a TemplateVM, run Tailscale's install script, update, install, and then base an AppVM off of it. But that creates an entire new OS taking up storage and requiring updates. You can hack a way around this in an AppVM which saves a considerable amount of space, but it takes a lot of upfront time to do and requires you to manually update it.
Another sticking point is hardware acceleration. The desktop environment has access to hardware acceleration, so it runs fine, but opening videos in AppVMs is all software decoded. I'm on a Thinkpad T580 and it can run 1080p videos, but the fans turn on and can't do 4K. When I want to game or do something GPU heavy I either stream from my tower or completely switch over.
Overall, I'm really happy with Qubes and I'm planning to stick with it on my laptops.
- Installing Windows 10 as a Qube. The install crashes at 10% in the "Getting files ready for installation" stage
-
GPU passthrough on Qubes?
I can't speak to 17+ GPUs - but have successfully passed through a single high-end GPU for gaming via following these instructions: https://github.com/Qubes-Community/Contents/blob/master/docs/customization/gaming-hvm.md
- Qubes OS new templates?
- Installer crashes at last moment ?
- Dual-booting Qubes and a Debian distro?
- ArchQubes?
-
Windows 7, 10, or 11 vm in Qubes-Os
Yes its possible. But check here under "Audio Support", also says at the bottom that windows 7, 10 & 11 are fully supported. As for how to install Windows, here. And installing Windows 11 by disabling the TPM check: https://forum.qubes-os.org/t/windows-11-in-qubes/6759/8.
- ISO download for HVM failing on all VMs
-
VPN Killswitch?
Follow this guide https://github.com/Qubes-Community/Contents/blob/master/docs/configuration/vpn.md
vouch
-
NPM repository flooded with 15,000 phishing packages
If you don't know the author, signatures do nothing. Anybody can sign their package with some key. Even if you could check the author's identity, that still does very little for you, unless you know them personally.
It makes a lot more sense to use cryptography to verify that releases are not malicious directly. Tools like crev [1], vouch [2], and cargo-vet [3] allow you to trust your colleagues or specific people to review packages before you install them. That way you don't have to trust their authors or package repositories at all.
That seems like a much more viable path forward than expecting package repositories to audit packages or trying to assign trust onto random developers.
[1]: https://github.com/crev-dev/crev [2]: https://github.com/vouch-dev/vouch [3]: https://github.com/mozilla/cargo-vet
- Dozens of malicious PyPI packages discovered targeting developers
-
Vetting the Cargo
Alternatives to cargo-vet that has been mentioned before here on HN:
- https://github.com/crev-dev/crev
- https://github.com/vouch-dev/vouch
Anyone know of any more alternatives or similar tools already available?
- Vouch – A multi-ecosystem package code review system
- Gitsign
-
Embedded malware in RC (NPM package)
I've created Vouch in an attempt to address this problem:
https://github.com/vouch-dev/vouch
Vouch lets users create and share reviews for NPM packages. Project dependencies can then be checked against those reviews.
Vouch uses extensions to interface with package ecosystems. It's simple to create a new extension. Extensions currently exist for NPM, PyPi, and Ansible Galaxy.
I'm currently working on a website to index known reviews and publish official reviews.
I hope you guys find it useful! Drop by the Matrix channel if you have any feedback to share: #vouch:matrix.org
- Vouch: A dependency review tool for NPM packages
- BREAKING!! NPM package ‘ua-parser-js’ with more than 7M weekly download is compromised
- Vouch: A dependency review tool for PyPI packages
What are some alternatives?
Qubes-vpn-support - VPN configuration in Qubes OS
npm-force-resolutions - Force npm to install a specific transitive dependency version
proton-bridge - Proton Mail Bridge application
gitsign - Keyless Git signing using Sigstore
qubes-app-split-browser - Tor Browser (or Firefox) in a Qubes OS disposable, with persistent bookmarks and login credentials
is-number - JavaScript/Node.js utility. Returns `true` if the value is a number or string number. Useful for checking regex match results, user input, parsed strings, etc.
bitmap-fonts - Monospaced bitmap fonts for X11, good for terminal use.
secimport - eBPF Python runtime sandbox with seccomp (Blocks RCE).
qubes-windows-tools-cross - Qubes Windows Tools build with mingw, wine and qubes-builder
SES-shim - Endo is a distributed secure JavaScript sandbox, based on SES
qubes-issues - The Qubes OS Project issue tracker
birdcage - Cross-platform embeddable sandboxing