Monday, January 14, I attempted to take another step towards my "Secure Pi". This is an idea to take a Raspberry Pi and make it into a secure computing device that could be used by activists. My goal was to download the TOR browser and then get the TorBirdy extension running on Thunderbird.
I hit an immediate roadblock when the flavor or LINUX I am running on the Pi does not support Firefox. I instead downloaded the TOR proxy that runs the browser. I also installed Chromium, the open-source version of Chrome. Alas, my efforts to run Chromium through the proxy were not successful. Thunderbird did not work either.
So I see three paths forward. One is that I can download another e-mail client and get that and Chromium running through the TOR proxy. Second, I can get the TOR proxy to work, but not an e-mail client. What I would do then is start looking at ProtonMail or some other secure site; this would be in the spirit of the project, a tool that would be used on an as-needed basis. If all else fails, I can just find another flavor of LINUX, put that on my SD card and go back to square one.
As for the next stage, that would either be to work on securing connections through a VPN, or working or a search engine.
Operation Bandit
As the "Bernie or Bust" movement seemed to be picking up steam after the 2016 DNC, I realized that there was the potential that Trump could be President. I began making plans which included using my technical skills. SInce Trump's election I have been to three hacking conventions, including the 2018 edition of HOPE and have been a subscriber to 2600, the well-known hacking magazine since 2017. What I have been looking for is a way to develop my skills, the Autumn 2018 issue may have provided me such a path. An article included a link to a site that has basic "wargames".
The first mission on Over The Wire is called "Bandit". I took a look at the first objective, to connect using SSH. and was unable to complete it. I figure a healthy dose of RTFM should get me back on the path from N00b to grom.
"Eastbound and down. . . "