Hi there. German Chaos Computer Club gave a nice presentation on surveillance features and other weird crap in North Korea's Red Star OS on their convention. Dunno if you /g/ents already had a thread about this as it's 2 days old, but it's pretty interesting (and the speakers talk English, so you might want to check it out if you haven't already)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTBemKiSgWI
>>52118854
Nobody interested? Some hilarious highlights:
> based on Fedora, but of course distributed without source code
> heavily modified to lock down the system against tampering (even though the user can get root if he wants)
> watermarking all media files even if you don't open them, to allow investigating their distribution chaing
> 'virus scanner' which deletes malicious media files (kek)
TL;DR: Basically a fascist locked down closed-source version of Linux which was modified to spy on it's users.
>>52119257
>>52119257
So... Windows 10
>>52119257
Same as any other operating system then ?
>>52118854
Its funny how they harp on the OS watermarking your files, meanwhile in the West (TM), anything that you print is watermarked with little sekret dots.
>>52119779
Good point, but printer steganography only enables government or police to identify the source, not everybody who distributed them along the way. Personally I think this kind of digital watermarking is a bit scary. And from a technical point of view, it fucks up checksums.
>>52119874
But it seemed to only be for some things, jpegs, .docx file et cetera, not binary files and that sort of thing. Still anoying but, most of the time jpegs do not need checksums.
>>52119721
>>52119552
Well, it seemed that the way this was organized was somewhat similar to some of the really crazy ideas people were putting forward by people here about Windows X. There is the proram the deletes malicious files, automatically, as per a somewhat corrupt means chose what consitiutes malicious. The tracking is also interesting. I need to test it, but I imagine that a savy korean could manually remove the checksums--though there was an effort it sounded like to watermark files that were simply present, it seemed like it only reliably worked when they were opened.
There also was a puzzling 'Warning.wav' file, that made a pig noise. Aparently this file is excatly pulled from a Norton program. This file is protected to the degree that, if it is tampered with the entire system reboots.
Which leads to another thing, the ways that they secured the system particularly it sounded like the tracking programs, from tinkering, were rather interesting. You can get root, but there are files that even root cannot see, and files that even root cannot tinker with.
>>52118854
the guy at the start has shade under his nose and looks like Hitler
>>52121271
It's quite possible that the OS installs a shitload of other tracking/watermarking/filtering features per automated updates once the system goes live on a computer within the North Korean internet. That was mentioned in the presentation, and sounds very reasonable because that way it's much harder to leak and will create a false sense of security among dissidents ("haha, gubment only tracks those x filetypes, so we'll spread our free speech with FLAC and be totally safe").
The protected pig noise file might look like a weird idea at first, but actually it's a nice way to expose systems which contain 'malicious' files or are tampered with - while at the same time acting like a popular antivirus. Kinda smart, in a weird way. And you don't even need tech-savvy police or secret service guys, any retard can report it.
>>52121914
Yeah. The fact that we are only looking at the ISO, not an actual, working system, makes for a problem.
For all we know when the OS was released some of the tracking systems were not so developed, but more recent updates cover a broader range of file types. Or perhaps even when it was released there were other programs that simply are loaded from the network, perhaps even with the goal to prevent people from understanding what the system does after they get their hands on an iso.
All this just gets into speculation, and we really cannot know without actually looking carefully at an installed system, which, alas, is difficult.
As far as the pig file, I am not really sure that I understand your point. Was it played somewhere by the malware program? I do not recal that it was, I thought it was just sort of there.
Also, would a North Korean civilian associate that noise with virus protection?
>>52122102
Regarding the pig file, that's just personal speculation about its purpose. I wouldn't even have associated it with antivirus myself before watching this video because I don't use Kaspersky, but it's among the first hits you get when you google "computer making pig noise", so there's that.
Might as well be a proof-of-concept thingie to demonstrate (to non-tech higher-ups) that you can't modify system files without repercussions. Or maybe one of the devs has a pig fetish, we'll never know.
>>52122422
I guess so. And if we have no idea what context this iso was leaked in, it may even be that the pig file is not present on all systems, it was just included for proof of concept purposes on a demonstration system.
But it is funny.
>>52122102
>>52122422
And my point was, to make that more clear.... You got an OS which is specifically designed to detect tampering and unwanted media files. And a specific audio file you can't ever get rid of as a normal user. Now imagine for example a cubicle farm setting, you'd just need one snitch who watches out for piggy noises to catch people who look at things they are not supposed to. And yeah, it's funny.
>>52122583
Ohhh. . . .
Now I see. That could make sense.
>>52118854
that was a really interesting speech
Obv some scary shit is going on here.
Certainly some effort it has been put in researching the OS, but not everything requires great Linux knowledge. I mean, its easy to see that checksums are fucked up.
I wonder if north koreans ever wonder what their government do. Not a single guy ever even tried to investigate?
>>52123003
Have you read 1984?
North Korea is not a bad country to live. Mostly capitalist propaganda.
>>52123003
People who live in such regimes are not dumb, bro. My parents grew up in Poland before the revolution. Everybody knew it was shit, everybody hated the government. Yet, you couldn't speak up against it (outside your close circle of family, friends, coworkers) without getting into trouble or just vanish. So you choke back your anger and act like a compliant citizen, for the sake of your family. Keep that in mind the next time you watch parades of happily cheering crowds from NK or other countries, the majority of participants makes a fist in their pockets. That's why they look like robots.
>>52119353
it's like 1950
>>52123731
North Korea is a beautiful country, the only problem is the government.
>>52119552
No, linux.
>>52123003
>but not everything requires great Linux knowledge. I mean, its easy to see that checksums are fucked up.
Easy when you know what to look for, but how many people do you know who even know what a checksum is? How many people would even notice that a picture or video or soundfile just grew by 20 bytes (or whatever the size of their watermark is)? And they could easily modify the OS to only display the base size and ignore the watermarks, after all they are an OS feature. So you would not only need enough knowledge but also an uncompromised, 'trustable' system to notice - especially the latter is hard to acquire down there.
>>52125413
could be checking where jpg/png/whatever signatures ends but i agree with you
>>52124749
i just feel bad for them, hope they find their way out from that. That's something free software definitively helps
>>52118854
This is really interesting. I'm going to have fun RE this.
>>52118854
I have nothing to hide so why shouldn't I use it?
>>52125413
I am not sure, but I think people distributing questionable material in countreis under opressive governments probably are going to be wary of blindly trusting computer platforms provided by those governments. People who try to distribute material like that will need to be paranoid, and will be on the lookout for minor changes and tracking systems.
If one person finds it, then they can pass it on, and ultimatley most people will just need to handle basic programs that they only crudley understand.
