Hi everyone,

I got to thinking on my drive home today, about how some people use there AmigaOS 4.x machines, and even other next gen flavours like MorphOS and Aros as there daily use computer, or only computer.

I was thinking if this is there daily use computer then they would use it for usual tasks like internet purchases ie ebay etc. I don't know about you but this is a scary notion with out some form of internet security ie firewall and all the other related protection features.

For the average hobby user that has a main system MacOS or Microsoft or Linux machine the current arrangement with the AmigaNG systems works but for daily users not so safe.

I know AmigaOS 4.x has a firewall called Granite, how good is this software at offering protection, and what about the other platforms, what do they offer?

My other questions is do we know if the current developers of AmigaOS, MorphOS and Aros have on there respective radars or development paths any intention of offering or encouraging the development of internet security for there respective operating systems?

Don't miss understand me, my daily driver is an iMac I am not paranoid or anything, I just find it interesting that for these operating systems to be developed over so many years that there appears to be no internet security developed for these systems. Now I also want to make it clear I am not referring to Virus protection I am talking about security.

I want to know what peoples thoughts are on this matter?

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Amiga A500 - PiStorm EMU68
Pegasos 2 G4 - AmigaOS 4.1 FE / MorphOS 3.16

@Fairdinkem

A firewall would not make your Amiga like os any safer to shop with SSL does that job and there no reason to suppose our SSL is any less secure than amyone elses, it runs the same basic code.

Use a router with a hardware firewall if your worried about intrusion from outside, although the odds on a amiga compatable intruder are extremely low!

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@Fairdinkem

I never use Windows machine for web purchases or anything which needs security. No matter how you're protected it, it's still too risky IMHO. It's a lot safer to use (even unprotected) Amiga clone for that. Those millions of trojans don't work on our setups :) I shop and pay whatever I can with an Amiga clone or sometimes with OSX Mac, but never with Windows.

For a firewall for all my computers I simply use router's firewall. I guess most people have their connection through a router anyway.

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@Fairdinkem

I agree with broadblues on this, an amiga is far more secure than any windows / mac / linux system, our SSL is as good as anyone elses. Our system is far more difficult to hack as there are no standard 'user' or 'my documents' drawers for hackers to delve into, there's not even a standard drive naming scheme the only constant is sys:. None of their spyware will run, nasty email attachments are harmless etc.
No one is going to bother to write any spyware etc. for as small a userbase as us, they want the millions of home windows users that don't have a clue about computer security and just do a bit of online shopping and web browsing.

As long as you have a sensible router, one that ignores pings instead of replying "i'm not here" (they are out there), you are totally safe :)

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@Thread

Very interesting the replies so far, thanks for the input.

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Amiga A1200T - TF1260 - R9200 - Indivision AGA MK3
Amiga A500 - PiStorm EMU68
Pegasos 2 G4 - AmigaOS 4.1 FE / MorphOS 3.16

@Fairdinkem

You do raise some interesting points. Although I would dispute Windows being a safer OS than AmigaOS. I'd even trust OSX x86 before Windows!

It has been said the Amiga is secure only through anonymity. And perhaps that's true. The fact is, no one knows what Amiga is these days. Tell those hackers who call up and say your PC is infected that you run AmigaOS and they will still instruct you to perform Windows operations because they are stupid and don't have basic hearing skills.

What is the most insecure is the machine that is the most popular yet suffers self esteem issues. The x86 Windows PC! Or x64, whatever you wanna call it these days. The fact here is that Windows and an x86 CPU is the most common denominator and so an easy target. Probably why OSX warded off these problems for years is because they were too lazy to work out how to break into OSX and compile for a non-x86 CPU. The effort just wasn't worth it compared to the lucrative PC market.

Getting back to Amiga. I do trust it. And more than anything else. The only firewall I have is the one built into my DG834G. On top of that unless there is a program specifically using a port for FTP or Samba or similar then there is no service to hack.

The other thing is we don't have things like Java nor use a common browser. And even with JavaScript, I don't know how protected the Amiga variants are, but a JS hacking script would most likely get stuck looking for common OS files to hack.

We are seeing machines hacked now, where the data is encrypted and then held for ransom. I don't know how these machines are organised but it's pretty bad if the common people can be hacked like this! If these files were on an Amiga machine would that have happened? I could say the same for Linux.

I think it is a risk using anything popular. I haven't researched it yet but I suspect Android is getting hacked or will be getting virus attacks soon. Lately my phone has been acting weird. Once my phone started ringing as if I had a call. But it locked up and I couldn't answer. Nor was anything on screen that I recall. I had to pull the battery out and reboot it! There was no sign of a call. And a few days ago I got the message sound. Twice. I looked and there was no message. Nor any sign of a notification.

Note that this is with standard precautions taken. I have Bluetooth and internet off. Wireless is off. I don't trust it. I trust AmigaOS4 to be secure over my smart phone!

Last edited by Hypex on 11-Jan-2013 at 12:57 PM.

@Hypex

The reason Amiga computers are not the target of malware or hacking attempts are that no one outside of this community knows the existence of the computer or os still in use. On the other hand, anyone trying on purpose to hack an Amiga would be like trying to rob a house with open doors.

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@Fairdinkem

Most people nowadays operate the machines (including Amigas) behind a NAT Router and this in itself protects alot of old security problems, the only real risk is some producing a sole Amiga orientated virus(trojan).

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@TheAMIgaOne

Given the venom that I see spewed against AmigaOS4, I would not be at all surprised if some moobunny freak has a go at hacking an OS4 machine...

@Fairdinkem

The concept of needing a firewall is a pretty stupid idea to begin with.

The problem is of course two-fold:

1: open services towards the outside world (user, administrator or programmer being plain stupid)
2: security holes in the IP-stack.

First things first, point 1. If you have exactly one machine connected to the internet, THOU SHALT NOT ENABLE ANY LAN SERVICES ON THIS MACHINE. EVER. This is where Windows fails miserably. If you have multiple machines connected and they need to talk to each other, then you need a gateway, which should either BE a firewall, or it should be connected THROUGH a firewall. Otherwise you're in deep dodo.

Having a software firewall on the machines which are supposed to communicate together isn't helping anyone, it's just in the way of your traffic. If there's a risk of viruses infecting you over the LAN, then you shouldn't be connected to that LAN. Or you shouldn't be using an OS that accepts code from the LAN just because it's there.

Point 2 is of course important, but if you put a firewall in front of a machine which has unknown security holes, how do you know there aren't unknown security holes in the firewall?

A linux-based firewall is simply a linux machine with no known security holes set up with no unnecessary services available to the outside. An Amiga-based firewall would be an Amiga with no known security holes set up with no unnecessary services available to the outside. Which is what you should aim for your Amiga being in the first place, ergo you shouldn't need an external firewall for your Amiga.

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@TheAMIgaOne

NAT does not actually protect against malicious packets sent in from the outside. That's the job of the firewall (checking that all packets toward a receiver belong to the stream the receiver requested).

If your IP stack can prevent SYN floods and your installation otherwise doesn't leave any suspicious ports open (and don't use UDP, as UDP sucks for security), I would say a firewall has little use.

Edit: of course, if you don't have ANY TCP services available, you shouldn't have to worry about SYN either.

Last edited by olegil on 22-Jan-2014 at 11:34 AM.

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This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@_ThEcRoW

Quote:

The reason Amiga computers are not the target of malware or hacking attempts are that no one outside of this community knows the existence of the computer or os still in use. On the other hand, anyone trying on purpose to hack an Amiga would be like trying to rob a house with open doors.

Not quite. There are no doors. There is nothing in an Amiga that accepts incoming connections by default. You would have to hack the IP-stack (Miami/Roadshow) directly, providing it has security holes the hacker knows about.

I have however an FTP server and two VNC servers running. They accept incoming connection and could be hacked. The FTP server is hacked very often, several times a week, but noone has ever gotten through. Sometimes I see robots looping user/pass combinations on my FTP server. They never succeed because I use no standard usernames (like admin or guest) and I have strong (non-guessable, non-brute-forcable) passwords.

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@Deniil715

Well, on the password side could be, but brute force hacking isn't always the way the systems get hacked. The most dangerous attacks are the ones that come as the result of a software flaw, then proceeding to privilege escalation, and since on amigaos there aren't restricted users(always the admin, like windows users have been for a long time) and you end up with a easily compromised setup.
The only thing preventing that is that no one outside of our community knows about the platform, and the people who have vast knowledge about the system are the ones who prefer to spend it in coding software/games/etc... than finding software flaws. After all security through obscurity is used today on many environments.

_________________
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Amiga 500 + ACA500plus 8mb + 30gb CF
Raspberry Pi 3b+ and Amibian 1.4
Mac Mini G4 1GB Ram with the butterfly!!

@jPV

+1, always use my Amiga for any online payment because I don't trust my PC's at all with online anything even with the latest 'security' software.

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@Fairdinkem

Can I ask you a question? When you were taking this drive where u puffin on something? Because Amigaoid type OS is much safer than any Windows box, or any MAC osX box for sure. As reasons stated in the thread. True, if its an "amiga hacker" (this aint 1992) he could pwn you pretty easily but Amiga type systems are very secure. If a hacker can break 128 or better ssl encryption and is coming after you nothing can save you anyway. Interesting thread though.

Buy a secure VPN router anonymously via bitcoin and be done with it.

@realize

Quote:

realize wrote: @Fairdinkem Can I ask you a question? When you were taking this drive where u puffin on something? Because Amigaoid type OS is much safer than any Windows box, or any MAC osX box for sure. As reasons stated in the thread. True, if its an "amiga hacker" (this aint 1992) he could pwn you pretty easily but Amiga type systems are very secure. If a hacker can break 128 or better ssl encryption and is coming after you nothing can save you anyway. Interesting thread though.

Your opening words are a question so I guess you already did. "Can I ask you a question?"

Why do I have to be smoking something to simply ask the question, how secure is all Next Gen Amiga platforms when connected to the internet? I would not think it is wise to simply assume because ones operating system of choice is safe simply because it is not mainstream.

As I mentioned in the beginning of the thread I am not paranoid I simply wanted to ask the question and discuss this topic.

_________________
Amiga A1200T - TF1260 - R9200 - Indivision AGA MK3
Amiga A500 - PiStorm EMU68
Pegasos 2 G4 - AmigaOS 4.1 FE / MorphOS 3.16

@Fairdinkem

Simply they aren't secure. The only thing that is preventing security issues is the obscurity of the platform.

_________________
Amiga 1200 desktop. Apollo 030/50 Mhz 8mb ram + ClassicWB + Wb 3.1
Amiga 500 + ACA500plus 8mb + 30gb CF
Raspberry Pi 3b+ and Amibian 1.4
Mac Mini G4 1GB Ram with the butterfly!!

@Fairdinkem

Quote:

Your opening words are a question so I guess you already did. "Can I ask you a question?"

LOL! This amuses me.

Quote:

Why do I have to be smoking something to simply ask the question

I agree. A lot us of assume it's okay because it's Amiga. And you did point out that it wasn't virus but security you was asking about.

Last edited by Hypex on 24-Jan-2014 at 03:13 PM.

@Fairdinkem

Well, there's a little more to it than someone just hacking into your computer because it's connected to the internet. First off, as some have pointed out, SSL encryption offered by most websites is pretty secure - extremely difficult to intercept and decode things like credit card details etc. Also, this sort of security is demanded by the website, so the Amiga browsers have to meet the online stores' requirements for security or they simply won't work.

The next thing is that encryption like that is what keeps your information safe in transit between you and the merchant, and has very little to do with firewalls. Firewalls are there to protect you from other people or bots gaining access to your computer to install local monitoring programs, find unencrypted sensitive information on your hard drive, and so on. But anyone who uses broadband these days is already much better protected by default than someone with a "direct" connection to the internet such as dial-up. All modern broadband modems and routers perform natwork address translation and some other firewall functions by default, so unless you go messing with their advanced settings, it's extremely difficult to do anything with your machines.

And then, the security-through-obscurity thing, which gives platforms like AmigaOS another small advantage, even if someone does manage to make a connection through your modem / router. And on top of that, Amigaoid platforms tend not to run daemons for things like remote shells, remote desktops and FTP by default, so the chances of being able to do something, even if you knew the Amiga file structure, are pretty low.

Anyway, if that's too long and boring, maybe do some research into things like firewalls, encryption and good network practice. It doesn't hurt to be overly careful or paranoid, but I think you might be able to relax a little, and once you use some common sense, you should be perfectly safe whether using Amiga-ish OSes, Windows, or any other platform.

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