SecBrowser: A Security-hardened, Non-anonymous Browser - DEPRECATED

[Patrick]

Also tested,

~/.tb/tor-browser/start-tor-browser.desktop --clearnet #(and without --clearnet)

and

~/.tb/tor-browser/Browser/start-tor-browser --clearnet #(and without --clearnet)

All fail with “The proxy server is refusing connections” when browsing to a website. This is expected?

Yes, because start-tor-browser (by Tor Project) doesn’t know about --clearnet. That is because only /usr/bin/torbrowser (by Whonix) had recently --clearnet implemented.

So only /usr/bin/torbrowser --clearnet makes sense.

TOR_TRANSPROXY=1 has to be prepended to the command for functional networking.

/usr/bin/torbrowser --clearnet will set that automatically. (See also bash -x /usr/bin/torbrowser --clearnet)

Does everyone know what clearnet is?

I doubt that. Very Tor community specific. And ambiguous also. Has at least two meanings.

https://www.whonix.org/wiki/FAQ#What_is_Clearnet.3F

Tested and worked ok fom me.

Yay.

Much of the discussion took place in Wiki edits thread. I could find those posts and move them to a new thread if you’d like.

Thanks for the offer, tough I think too much work and not much gain. So better safe the time.

---

Systemd method would start firefox as root as a service. But even systemd user services wouldn’t give us anything related to multiple user.js files.

[Patrick]

Tor Browser 8.5 in Whonix no longer can save passwords (and it deleted all existing ones) allowed for savings passwords by default.

save passwords by default for Non-Whonix ™ Tor Browser

Untested.

[0brand]

Installed tb-updater with the latest commit and I was not able to set a master password which is required for Tor Browser to remember passwords.

Password Change Failed

Unable to change Master Password.

However, user names are remembered. Looks like one of our custom user.js prefs disables this function for Tor Browser without Tor.

[0brand]

I tested the instructions in Fedora-29. Interestingly, disabling private browsing mode is all that is needed to save passwords. Also torbrowser-launcher was removed from Debian testing (buster). So the only option is to install from Debian unstable (sid).

https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/torbrowser-launcher
https://packages.debian.org/sid/torbrowser-launcher

For Qubes Documentation I’m going to include instructions to install from Debian sid and a separate instructions using tb-updater. And the current Whonix tutorials will be updated as well.

[Patrick]

Would be ok but any reason to keep torbrowser-launcher?

For simplicity I would suggest tb-updater all the way.

[Patrick]

Can we please make this page https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Tor_Browser_without_Tor sound more exciting? That project did not catch on yet.

The security community is much bigger than the privacy/anonymity communities. If they know there was a hardened browser, a lot people would use it. Would be good to have help, attention and development support of the security community. Hardened Firefox should be a thing in the security community. But information spreads much less than one would expect nowadays. A public wiki page somewhere doesn’t necessarily lead to wide publication. It’s still like “a secret”.

To start this, is anyone up for aggregating primarily the security enhancements that Tor Browser implements? (Secondarily perhaps also privacy enhancements.) Perhaps a comparative table similar to https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Sdwdate#sdwdate_vs_ntp? Perhaps some libre licensed selfrandom images?

[madaidan]

The Tor Browser doesn’t increase security from default Firefox except maybe changing the security sliders which can just be easily gotten on default Firefox. The sandboxed Tor Browser version has also been dead for a while now. I wouldn’t name it something related to security like that.

[Patrick]

TODO research and document - How to use Tor Browser for security not anonymity? How to use TBB using clearnet?

Can we please make this page https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Tor_Browser_without_Tor sound more exciting? That project did not catch on yet. The security community is much bigger than the privacy/anonymity communities. If they know there was a hardened browser, a lot people would use it. Would be good to have help, attention and development support of the security community. Hardened Firefox should be a thing in the security community. But information spreads much less than one would expect nowaday…

https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Tor_Browser_without_Tor mentions a few things.

Security enhancements:

• improved exploit protection through selfrando [4]
• disable WebRTC [5]
• security slider
• noscript installed by default
• reproducible builds

• To provide users with optional defense-in-depth against JavaScript and other potential exploit vectors, we also include NoScript.
  [6]

• We also modify several extension preferences from their defaults.
  [6]

• proxy and DNS configuration obedience
• Full RELRO [7]

Is there really no more to it? I haven’t reviewed all Tor Browser design docs yet or at least cannot recite that part. Anyone up to do that?

[madaidan]

disable WebRTC

Does disabling WebRTC improve security? I know it leaks your IP but that’s more of an anonymity issue than a security one.

I never knew about the selfrando and relro. Those are interesting.

Is there really no more to it? I haven’t reviewed all Tor Browser design docs yet or at least cannot recite that part. Anyone up to do that?

Not that I’m aware of. I’ve skimmed through the design doc before and never found anything that would improve security much,

There is this part but the only actual security feature would be the security slider that just changes a few about:config options.

[Patrick]

madaidan via Whonix Forum:

disable WebRTC

Does disabling WebRTC improve security? I know it leaks your IP but that’s more of an anonymity issue than a security one.

The more gets disabled, the less attack surface.

[HulaHoop]

Does disabling WebRTC improve security? I know it leaks your IP but that’s more of an anonymity issue than a security one.

There were a couple of vulns:
https://www.cvedetails.com/product/33499/Webrtc-Project-Webrtc.html?vendor_id=15802

[madaidan]

The more gets disabled, the less attack surface.

So why mention WebRTC specifically? There are plenty of things that get disabled in the Tor Browser that could be considered as reducing attack surface.

There were a couple of vulns:
https://www.cvedetails.com/product/33499/Webrtc-Project-Webrtc.html?vendor_id=15802

Those were fixed years ago and there are very little.

[0brand]

So why mention WebRTC specifically? There are plenty of things that get disabled in the Tor Browser that could be considered as reducing attack surface.

WebRTC was previously shown to leak sensitive info when VPNs are used. VPNs are very popular. This could perk the interest of those users. WebRTC disabled

Unfortunately perception sometimes trumps reality.

[Patrick]

madaidan via Whonix Forum:

The more gets disabled, the less attack surface.

So why mention WebRTC specifically? There are plenty of things that get disabled in the Tor Browser that could be considered as reducing attack surface.

No specific reason. Documentation / lack of research issue.

[madaidan]

No specific reason. Documentation / lack of research issue.

Maybe it should be changed to “Reduced attack surface”?

[Patrick]

Reducing attack surface is a part of security enhancement.

[madaidan]

I know, I meant that the “disabled WebRTC” part should probably be changed to “reduced attack surface” in the wiki as it isn’t just WebRTC that is disabled.

[Patrick]

That’s ok, also to other examples would be useful generally.

[Patrick]

Long Wiki Edits Thread

Nitpicking on myself, on something which couldn’t be documented better since the source code for that does not exist yet. Perhaps the following terms are confusing…? update-torbrowser torbrowser /rw/config/torbrowser.d/ All of that could be changed… Wrappers could be added with ease. update-torbrowser -> update-secbrowser torbrowser -> secbrowser /rw/config/torbrowser.d/ -> /usr/local/etc/torbrowser.d/ -> /usr/local/etc/secbrowser.d/ For example /usr/bin/secbrowser (not for documenta…

Long Wiki Edits Thread

This biggest issue is flip-flopping between SecBrowser… Tor Browser, torbrowser and Tor Browswer without Tor… in the documentation. It was difficult for me to decide which term to use in some areas. It would likely be confusing for end users as well. Even more so. I didn’t catch this one. Users might think they are starting Tor Browser. Would be worth the effort. All of this would make SecBrowser more of a standalone Browser. Meaning not always over shadowed by Tor Browser. Thats the bigge…

Long Wiki Edits Thread

tb-updater / tb-starter upgraded in all repositories. secbrowser download-secbrowser No more tb_clearnet settings required. (Set automatically when using these wrappers.) Will update the page on github.

[Patrick]

We need a start menu icon for SecBrowser.