Xen-Based Secure OS Qubes Hits 1.0 175
Orome1 writes "Joanna Rutkowska, CEO of Invisible Things Lab, today released version 1.0 of Qubes, a stable and reasonably secure desktop OS. It is the most secure option among the existing desktop operating systems — even more secure than Apple's iOS, which puts each application into its own sandbox and does not count on the user to make security decisions. Qubes will offer users the option of using disposable virtual machines for executing tasks they believe could harm their computer. These VMs will be lightweight, easily and extremely speedily created and booted, and would be just as easy to discard."
First covered back in 2010. See some screenshots of the X11 part in action (and they say displaying clients from multiple "hosts" isn't useful...)
Re:Not quite true about iOS... (Score:3, Interesting)
Is there a way to use iOS without iTunes, because iTunes does, by default, require personal information. Is there a way to set up iTunes and purchase apps for iOS without giving up any personal information?
Unless you are on an enterprise account there is no tracking between accounts and what you buy. The only company with that information is Apple and Apple doesn't sell data. Its sort of like worrying about privacy from the bank that's running your credit cards.
Re:I Use Words Good (Score:4, Interesting)
I imagine a sufficiently clever hacker could think of a way to bypass the guest OS and the hypervisor and do wacky things
Someone who could figure out how to do that would rent a private virtual server from Rackspace and go to town. I imagine there would be far more lucrative targets than a desktop.
Re:And I feel so safe downloading it.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:secure you say? (Score:2, Interesting)
"I wonder if I have a crappy old machine lying around somewhere that I could test it on."
No. You almost surely don't.
I've been fooling around with Qubes for six months now, looking for a good solution to the Bitcoin offline wallet issue. Qubes is perfect - you don't need to be offline, and yet you can manipulate your 'offline' wallet using Armory in a ("Black") Qubes VM with zero network contact; but you can use (secure copy/paste) file transfer to the online component of your wallet in a different VM with network access to send and receive bitcoins.
The thing is, you need some pretty specific hardware to enable all the security features of Qubes: either Intel VT-d, or IOMMU. Effective GPUs are limited as well. And chipsets, of course.
So unless your "crappy old machines" are a hell of a lot better than what's usually laying around, you're going to need to buy some hardware just like I did.
But it's worth it.