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Re: [LUG] [OT maybe] CVE-2016-5195 vs Amazon FireOS 5.6.2.0

 

On 24/07/18 08:52, Simon Waters wrote:
> I fear your joy at Amazon’s inability to roll out kernel fixes may be short lived 
> when you discover the network you want to use your shiny rooted Fire tablet on is 
> one big botnet playground....
> 
> In other news router firmware...
> 

Ha, I see where you're coming from chief but what's your argument here?

There's bad stuff and a lot of insecurity on the internet? Well thanks 
for that Captain Obvious, we had no idea!

Don't get me wrong, I completely agree with you - and as per usual I've 
been neck deep in the security news and know what you're alluding to. 
The state of routers currently is at an all time low, and that's 
*really* saying something :[

I have repeatedly said on this list before that your router is NOT to be 
trusted on any accounts, especially a consumer one and especially 
especially not an ISP provided one. Keep it on the outside of your 
trusted perimeter at all costs, in as dumb an operational mode 
(preferably modem mode) as humanly possible. I note that Giles (a self 
confessed "network guy") immediately piped up and said that's what he 
does, with a commodity type pfsense or something in between it and your 
internal network. He's right of course, you need that as a minimum and 
even then you're simply now devolving your trust to the providers of 
pfsense and the hardware manufacturers of your commodity router.

Also I should probably point out (I know _you_ know this, but humour me) 
that in the specific case of my shiny new rooted Fire tablets all is 
indeed well! Why does the state of any network - let's just say The 
Internet - they're on possibly concern me? I can't "fix" the internet, 
but I need access to it anyway just like everyone else. I'm probably the 
most paranoid person on the entire list after all and am acutely aware 
just how dangerous the internet is. But I still need it, effectively 
live on it, own tens and admin literally thousands of devices connected 
to it 24/7. So what? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Rooting those tablets is the best thing that's ever happened to them: 
the first thing hackers do after getting access and making sure it's 
persistent is of course closing the very holes they used to get in. 
Sure, Amazon can't patch DirtyCOW (the lazy bastards...) but now I've 
got root, I *can*. I can also debloat it, remove the - copious - 
crap/mal/shovel ware, kill advertising and metrics and install my own 
stuff: adblocking just for a start. In short, the attack surface has 
just been hugely reduced on my freshly rooted tablet, not increased.

And we all know the internet is full of bad stuff already chief :]

So yeah, not really sure where you're going with this to be honest - 
unless you just want to vent fury about the tragic state of routers and 
internet security in general of course. In which case, let me grab by 
pitchfork and torch, I'm in!

Cheers
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