@forest Yeah, maybe not, though TempleOS does appear to meet the actual requirements, but that only gets you as far as "MAY assign"

I suppose when you're running everything in ring 0 you technically do rule out a lot of potential vulnerabilities

@MichaelHomer Not to mention its lack of networking facilities.

I mean, code execution via malformed Red Sea filesystem image, maybe...

Fuzzing FAT32/ISO9660 seems like the best bet

There seems to be an active community around it still, but it is... not pleasant

The community isn't?

A fair few of them seem to be in it for the slurs

Oh, they're just shitposters.

Terry Davis had a remarkably... dirty mouth.

Yeah, the racism seems to be the part they like

And glow in the dark space aliens.

@AdamL Sorry if it sounds weird/rude, but are you using a markov bot or something? The last couple of sentences you made sadly didn't made sense, or maybe my understanding of English just went down the drain? Just curious

@MichaelHomer there probably a whole lot depending on how you see it...(I mean, this is running in ring 0, so wouldn't be surprised of what could be considered a security hole). Then again, I don't think it's main purpose was maintaining security wise features (beside the fact there no internet?).

Yeah, I'm thinking ACE in the filesystems (or compiler?) are the best bets, those could be actually damaging even within a single-user ring-0 context

@MichaelHomer the main problem though would be knowing if those said "security holes" are "on-purpose" bugs or just there as a side effect of something else? (like say, if the RNG in TempleOS was introducing a weird bug or something)

It'd be pretty easy to tell if it's intentional or not.

@forest I mean, it's harder to think of something as a bug when the main people working on it never shared more "technical detail" on his vision

it's easier for Linux and Windows and such

Well just because he hasn't published a formal threat model doesn't mean there's not an implicit one.

True, but then it'll be up to interpretation (on certain things, not all of them).

like we could all agree on a specific error/bug, but maybe not a specific one etc

It does list "No security or cryptography." as part of its strategy

yeah

oh, huh

Then one could find a bug, but it wouldn't necessarily count as security-related.

exactly

it all depend on interpretation

and i guess "needs"?

Bug report: TempleOS RNG doesn't actually communicate with higher beings.

it probably doesn't, but you gotta admit some of what it output is interesting depending on the context (eg: there a game you can play there, and you have to use the RNG to find "clues"...)

When I look out my back window I can't tell if it's my yard or a field in ireland. I'm definitely going to be lawn dominating my neighbors this year

I'm shopping for a new external hard drive. Used almost entirely for backups.

The choices I'm seeing on Amazon India include Toshiba and Western Digital. I think my two previous exernal hard drives were also WD. But no reason not to consider something different. The prices for 2TB for WD and Toshiba differ a bit. Toshiba is more expensive.

@FaheemMitha I always prefer to use get a sata to usb adapter and then you can use any internal drives as an external

I seem to remember from one or more articles in the past that Toshiba makes the most reliable hard drives. I don't know if this is actually true, though.

@jesse_b Why would want to do that? Cost?

Or something else?

yeah it usually ends up cheaper but also versatility

My current external drive is still working, but has be throwing two sector errors for a while. So I thought maybe I would get a new one. After all, backups need to be reliable.

especially if you are just using it for backups you can buy a single sata to usb adapter and multiple internal drives

@jesse_b Versatile how?

@jesse_b Can they just lie around on the floor? Are they properly protected?

I wouldn't leave them on the floor but I have stored drives in a tupperware container for years and they are fine

I think the review was by Backblaze.

fwiw western digital owns almost all hard drive manufacturers now

@jesse_b Well, that's where my external hard drives live. Because the computer is also on the floor. It's a mid size tower.

@jesse_b Including Toshiba?

I think toshiba and wd are still different

@jesse_b OK

I used to have a hard drive docking station like: amazon.com/WAVLINK-External-Docking-Functions-Tool-Free-Black/…

@jesse_b That's interesting. But surely there must be some reason why people prefer the external drives?

Or is it just convenience?

What about reliablity? Or speed?

Convenience mostly. The dock is obviously not very portable

You can get enclosures though that are essentially the same as an external

amazon.com/Sabrent-External-Lay-Flat-Docking-EC-DFLT/dp/…

amazon.in/WAVLINK-Docking-Station-Offline-Function/dp/…

That's quite expensive for an enclosure, and more expensive than an external hard drive. Which runs like Rs. 5000 to 7000.

amazon.in/PiBOX-India-Adapter-Converter-ASM1153e/dp/B07KDKNT29/…

@jesse_b That's much cheaper, certainly. But then reliability is a concern.

if you disassemble any external enclosure that is basically the same thing you will find inside them

@jesse_b I see.

that last one I sent may have problems with 3.5" hard drives though, generally they need an external power source although I have had them work with just usb power

In that case, why not just hook up an SSD, though?

that is an option but it may be overkill for backups

Wow, those are much more expensive.

@jesse_b Perhaps. But I was thinking of reliability.

Backups do need to be reliable. Though I only use them very rarely.

an idea for the external drive adapter would be that you can usually easily get your hands on used external drives for very cheap

I was just reminded of that when I did a rm *.tex command in a directory, which deleted a bunch of files. I then spent 20 minutes figuring the borg command to replace that directory.

@jesse_b Perhaps that doesn't apply so much in India.

I see people giving away old laptops on the local buy/sell sites all the time for example. Could go grab them to pull the drive and then scrap the rest

Or perhaps it doesn't. I don't know.

end up with a stack of 500GB-1TB drives that you can easily swap out

That wouldn't work right now, regardless. We have a public health catastrophe going on. The city is in lockdown.

@jesse_b I only need one, though. :-)

you could drive by their house with your back window open and have them yeet the laptop into your car

@jesse_b I don't own a car. And I think you've find Bombay is a bit different from the US in many respects. :-)

I wonder where one would get used hardware from, in India. I never have.

Anyway, time to head bedwards. Thanks for the suggestions.

@jesse_b Unfortunately most sealed external enclosures for portable hard drives are of very low quality. They contain standard internal drives that failed QA and could not be sold alone.

You want to buy an external enclosure and put an internal drive in it.

@forest see above conversation

WD Red is fairly good. WD RE is even better, if you have some money.

lol exim openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2021/05/04/7

(Disclaimer: I'm in magnetism research :P)

how do magnets work?

current consensus is "magic"

(also quantum mechanics)