Topic: Air Gapped on Windows or Tails? (Read 254 times)

I don't have a problem using Windows, but wouldn't mind using Tails. I'm using Electrum on an airgapped Amazon Fire tablet which had all other software removed. The physical wireless antenna have not been touched, but it has never been online and doesn't know any wifi passwords so it won't connect to anything, and I've intentionally disabled all wireless related stuff in software.

I got the Amazon Fire because it's a cheap quad core android-compatible tablet that was on sale, and no one suspects that I'll be using it completely offline. It's essentially my hardware wallet that can see QR codes and display them after signing the transaction.

SCADA stands for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition.

In most manufacturing processes, you have devices, usually called PLC or Programable Logic Controllers. These will be simple controllers to measure values, or turn relays on or off, start or stop motors etc.

SCADA gives the human operator a GUI across one or more PLCs. It's just computer software, often written in C or similar languages, that sits above and controls the PLCs.

Iranian centrifuges were damaged when hacked SCADA was showing operators one thing, eg safe rotational speed, while doing something else entirely, eg winding them up to damaging speeds.

Is this suppose to be a play on words?

What's SCADA and what does it have to do with the USB stick?

But, Tails is a popular Linux OS that contains Electrum. Yeah, you could use another one such as Ubuntu, Debian etc., of course.

Yes, and someone more paranoid than your paranoid would point you to Heads rather than Tails.

As for the air gap, remember how Iran got their expensive centrifuges damaged by malware some years ago, those were air gapped too... Their mistake was running SCADA using Windows and of course someone brought an usb stick one day...

If you care enough about using an air gap, get rid of Windows. It doesn't need to be Tails, i see no point if the machine is not connected anyway; any distro would work.

Fact is that Linux is 100% more secure than windows, that is why all servers and important information is kept on Linux operated systems not on windows, and all security experts recommend Linux.
Open source software is much more safe because anyone can inspect the code and propose bug while, while microsoft bug fixes are just creating more problems and only closed groups of people work on it.
Best things in the world are open source like Bitcoin code, or internet browsers we use every day, and closed source means you are hiding something from public for whatever the reason is.
One more plus for using and donating to open source is that you are directly supporting developers and not big tech corporations.

Bitlocker is closed source software and Microsoft with government agencies probably have backdoors for that encryption.
It's also trivial to bypass log-in in windows or access any files you want, so I won't encrypt anything important with that.

There are some Linux OS that looks and feels even more like windows (Zorin OS) or like mac (Elementary OS), and best thing is to check website called Distrowatch to see most popular Linux OS.
One more interesting Windowsfx 11 Linux OS:
https://www.windowsfx.org/

List of Linux OS that accept Bitcoin donations (you can't or shouldn't do that for windows):
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/linux-os-accepting-bitcoin-donations-5347466

I'm maybe out of the loop here since I don't really use Windows for anything serious or security related, but last I checked, Windows did not have a full disk encryption option, unlikely pretty much every Linux distro. BitLocker will do it, but it is only available on Professional or Enterprise editions, which most people do not have. So you are left either trying to set up your own system which is likely to beyond the capabilities of many users, or not encrypting the whole disk but only encrypting your wallet files. With most Linux distros, it's as easy as checking a box and entering a decryption key during the install process.

Now that's where plausible deniability comes in, but that isn't really relevant to the discussion about which OS you are using. There are things like hidden volumes which would allow you to hide the existence of both your wallet files and your wallet software.

Sure there are - any piece of software has the possibility of bugs and vulnerabilities. But if I can install a bare-bones operating system with no unnecessary software, compared to installing something like Windows 10 which has literally gigabytes of unnecessary code, then the potential for critical vulnerabilities is much smaller.

If you want to make the jump from Windows, then try out Linux Mint. It is designed to be as similar to Windows as possible to make the transition almost seamless. You can even boot it from a USB just to play around with it, or set up a dual boot so you can you always fall back on Windows if you need to.

OK, fair point.

Why did you compare an encrypted Linux OS with a Windows 10 machine without encryption? Or maybe you meant to say a Windows 10 PC with an encrypted disk. Do you have reasons to believe that a full disk encryption by the same encryption software used on a Win 10 is easier to circumvent (due to all previously mentioned software and bloatware) compared to one done on a Linux OS? If not, your first line of defense, (the encryption software) seems equally strong/weak on both OSs. 

It depends who that someone is. A regular thief looking for something valuable to steal and sell. You should be protected against those.
A well-prepared and determined robber who knows why he is targeting you and what you may have on that computer. Now it's a bit tricky. You could reject his demands, but there are also two knee caps and your family that you need to consider if he knows about them.

If you are targeted by a government agency and tell them no, they will find ways to violate your rights in ways you didn't think were possible in the name of national security.     

Regarding the part where you mentioned vulnerabilities in software on Windows. Are there no similar cases to the ones you mentioned on Linux? I don't use Linux, so I really don't know. But the fact that something is open-source doesn't make it safer and more secure. I don't mean Linux, I am talking about any software. Open-source means that you can inspect the code. A codebase that can still suck, be bad, backdoored, and full with bugs that can be easily misused by those who know how to. A badly coded open-source software presents a greater risk than a badly coded close-source software if you think about it. You have open code that is public, compared to hidden code that you don't see. 

If you know how to work on Linux or you have the time and patience to learn it, sure, I see no reason to use Windows. The only plus side is its easy of use and greater offer of software.

Because there is no computer system in the world which is 100% safe from attack or bugs or vulnerability, and every additional piece of software present is a potential attack surface. If someone gains physical access to my airgapped Linux computer which is encrypted at rest, then I'm fairly confident they would find it impossible to extract any meaningful data from it. If someone gained access to an airgapped computer with Windows 10 on it, then I have no idea what kind of bugs and vulnerabilities they could exploit. Even just looking at Cortana, there have been a number of serious vulnerabilities (such as https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/en-US/vulnerability/CVE-2018-8140) which would allow an attacker to extract information or plant malware.

Or perhaps vulnerabilities in Windows print spooling software: https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/en-US/vulnerability/CVE-2021-34527
Or perhaps in Windows media player: https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/en-US/vulnerability/CVE-2021-34439
Or perhaps in Windows DVD codecs: https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/en-US/vulnerability/CVE-2021-1668

The list is endless. Every piece of unnecessary software and bloatware is a new risk. If I'm going to the effort of physically removing hardware to create an airgapped device and installing a clean OS, then why would I not pick the OS which is more secure and has fewer vulnerabilities? It's a no brainer.

I had the same argument a while back regarding a hardware wallet which came with Tetris installed on it. Fun, maybe, but a completely unnecessary piece of code and therefore a completely unnecessary security risk.

All true, but what harm can come from it on an 100% airgapped computer that has never been online and has had the hardware to get back online removed? Unless someone finds a way to get hold of your QR codes or the data you share between your offline and online computer with a USB. 

It does for some reason. Candy Crush and a couple of similar trashy games.

Not necessarily. Windows has far more vulnerabilities in it than most Linux distros, and also generally comes bundled with so much vaporware/junkware/bloatware like Cortana and Bing embedded in to everything and monitoring your keyboard strokes, remote access tools, and other privacy invading trash. Doesn't Windows 10 come with Candy Crush installed on it, for God's sake? Even if my computer is airgapped, I'm not trusting that mess with the security of all my bitcoin.

For now. The way that things are moving with internet connectivity being required for a number of software packages, software being rented instead of owned, software moving entirely to the cloud, and other software as a service nonsense, I can easily foresee a future where you have to rent your copy your Windows which will not allow you to do most things without an internet connection.

The real advantage that Tails has, is that it was designed to be able to be used offline... easily. In that, it has the option right in the boot menu for booting with networking off.

You may find that running Windows "offline" causes issues with some modules as they're designed to be used in an "always on" environment... but at worst, I would expect an error message or 2... it certainly shouldn't be any showstopper issues that mean the OS is basically non-functional.

If what you and o_e_l_e_o are saying regarding data extraction is true (and I assume you both know what you are talking about), that would mean that open-source operating systems are equally vulnerable as close-source ones. It makes no difference what OS you are using when we are talking about extracting data from a computer's hard drive, for example. 

There are multiple ways that data can be extracted from an airgapped system. Data can be transmitted via audio from speakers, adjusting the speed of the fans, or adjusting the speed of the hard drive, for example. It can be transmitted visually by utilizing LEDs on your computer's case or peripherals, or by altering refresh rates or flickering on the monitor. It can be transmitted electromagnetically or even magnetically by controlling currents in various wires or components. While all of these are technically possible, they require an attacker to first manage to infect your airgapped computer specific malware to perform the task, and then also set up monitor or surveillance equipment in close proximity to your computer. If your computer remains permanently airgapped, encrypted at rest, physically inaccessible and locked in your house, and you do not plug in random USB drives to it, then these attacks become essentially impossible.

There are a number of reasons I prefer to use Linux over Windows for my airgapped devices:

• Open source
• Not spyware
• Not bundled with a bunch of vaporware and other software I don't want or need
• Less intensive on resources for old hardware
• Less likely to randomly break or mess up
• Easier to perform full disk encryption

This is certainly one way of doing it. Tails also supports encrypted persistent storage as mentioned above: https://tails.boum.org/doc/first_steps/persistence/index.en.html

How could they spy on you if it's air gapped? You're supposed to never connect the internet.

I did read  that some researchers demonstrated that they were able to pick up the sounds from a hard disk seeking, and thus reconstruct data from the disk, even if the computer was not connected to the internet. However, that does seem a bit impractical, even for the most dedicated hacker..

Having read the replies, my thinking is that it might be good to use tails for any significant transactions.

As these would be infrequent, one could recreate the wallet each time from the memorised seed phrase, and an online watching wallet.

If someone has access to your offline, airgapped computer... you have much bigger issues than the fact they might be able to download some tracking metrics from Cortana

I was not saying about airgapped but in general, and Win OS is collecting data and all your activity even if you are not connected to the internet, so anyone who get's access to your computer will have that data.
I would say that is a security risk if you are thinking about choosing OS to use with electrum in arigapped system.

Tails can work without persistent storage at all. You keep your seed on a paper and you're good.
I don't think that Windows can do that. And in 10 years you'll forget why that old PC was never online, you'll sell it and somebody may recover the wallet.

Of course, it can be seen as an extreme example, but it's you who has to think on the full use case. On short term, as long as neither will ever go online, there's not much of a difference.
On Windows you may have to also set it to not auto-start USB devices if you plan to use an USB stick for transferring unsigned/signed transactions. To avoid surprises...

A paranoid would say that it matters if the OS is open-source, which is true only for the latter. So, if you're feeling extremely nervous of which option is better, then I'd recommend you Tails. It sounds more honest to allow everyone look into the code.

How could they spy on you if it's air gapped? You're supposed to never connect the internet.

Tails Linux OS is obviously better for privacy than windows and you won't have nightmare tracking and spying like with win os.
Airgapped option is great if you have computer that is not connected with network or internet, but Tails is not really meant to be used as permanent OS, more as a portable option without persistent storage.
Better option could be Qubes OS + Electrum maybe.

The airgapping in itself is what makes the wallet secure. Your operating system doesn't matter as much, go with what you think is more usable for you.

The only way this might actually be a thing though is if you want your online version of the wallet to be forgotten every time you shut down - for which you might be better off using tails on the online PC.