Category Archives: hardware

The best Raspberry Pi alternatives by https://is.gd/iGBMyy

The Raspberry Pi has taken the world by storm, launching a whole new hobby computing revolution. The little microcomputer has inspired makers, developers and enthusiasts to create their own projects in fields as diverse as IoT, home automation and even space exploration.

However, if the Raspberry Pi isn’t quite right for you, there are plenty of other single-board computers to choose from. So if it doesn’t quite float your boat, here are some of the best alternatives.

from https://is.gd/iGBMyy

Selected by Galigio via Computer Borders

Intel’s Compute Card could transform the world of smart devices by https://is.gd/dQWPif

It doesn’t take too long before your typical “smart” gadget becomes dumb. After a few years, the hardware inside of your TV or connected refrigerator will be hopelessly out of date. And if you want to upgrade, your only choice right now is to buy a whole new device.

Intel is hoping to change that with the Compute Card, a credit card-size device that packs in all of the hardware — a processor, memory, storage and networking capabilities — needed to make any device smart.

from https://is.gd/dQWPif

Selected by Galigio via Computer Borders

Intel ends its dreams of replacing the x86 chip in your PC by https://is.gd/YVXQY9

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When Intel launched its first Itanium processor in 2001, it had very high hopes: the 64-bit chip was supposed to do nothing less than kill off the x86 architecture that had dominated PCs for over two decades. Things didn’t quite pan out that way, however, and Intel is officially calling it quits.

from https://is.gd/YVXQY9

Selected by Galigio via Computer Borders

If you use TAILS you should test a bit of HEADS alchemy

If you use TAILS you are certainly interested to better know HEADS because Heads isn’t simply another Linux distribution, it merges physical hardening of particular hardware platforms and flash protection attributes with a Linux boot loader in ROM as well as custom Coreboot firmware.

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The key factor in Heads is represented by its steady monitoring of the boot process that allows detecting if the firmware has been changed by malware.

If this first check certifies that all is unchanged, heads uses the TPM as a hardware key to decrypt the hard disk.

The certified integrity checking of the root filesystem is really effective against exploits but it doesn’t secure the system against each possible attack but it is able to effectively divert many types of attacks against the boot process and physical equipment that have usually been ignored in conventional setups, hopefully increasing the issue beyond what most attackers are willing to spend.

c3tv-bootstraping-a-slightly-more-secure-laptop

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Image from redpill-linpro.com

Cloning block devices online using Software RAID

TrueCrypt – Try it again! Waiting for CipherShed…

truecryptlogo_256TrueCrypt is safer than we thought! A specific audit tested TrueCrypt 7.1 unmantained through a complex verification process and the results are surprising.

First of all we have to consider that TrueCrypt is not mantained since 2014 and that its “natural” fork, VeraCrypt, is directly developed by Microsoft. For this simply reason many former TrueCrypt users prefer not to use VeraCrypt.

Secondly, the bugs revealed by the testers in TrueCrypt are less worrying than that discovered using its competitors solutions.

For this reason I decide to install TrueCrypt (that I use previously it was unmantained) on my Fedora 22 laptop.

To begin, I searched for a good repository and, at the end, I opted for that mantained by GRC. So I downloaded the TrueCrypt 7.1 archive from GRC that is still storing all the others TrueCrypt versions.

I decided to use the 7.1 version because it has more features than the last 7.2 version (the last known release of TrueCrypt). In any case I am monitoring the Swiss website and I wish that the CypherShed project will be completely developed soon.

After I extracted the file and moved it to a specific folder.

Last but not least I opened Terminal and typed:

sudo ./truecrypt-7.1a-setup-x64

and the software was correctly installed into my Fedora 22 OS.

After some tests I can adfirm that TrueCrypt is still a good security solution not only for the above mentioned audit but also because it is really stable, flexible, full of useful features and simple to use.

To sum up: Try it… again!

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Memory is dirt cheap at a time when it should be expensive

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