Portmaster 1.0 – Open-Source Network Monitor and Privacy Firewall

Re:Portmaster 1.0 – Open-Source Network Monitor and Privacy ... by mdip on Saturday November 05, 2022 @05:59PM (#33486317)

Rather insightful on (2) with regard to:

    > ... we need to start protecting against the person in front of the device

My first thought was, "Oh, God, please don't". I'm a parent, if I put that software on the computer it comes with rules not to touch it; if it's touched, they know I'll probably find out, ban them from it for a bit and return it to them locked down in a manner that when I return it to its original state, they won't touch it again. :o).

But then I thought of the other common reason this kind of capability is added to software -- are you preparing for the eventual future where you will have to do this, not to protect from a child removing the software, but to protect from another app surreptitiously removing Portmaster in order to bypass its protections?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Portmaster 1.0 – Open-Source Network Monitor and Privacy ... by dhaavi on Saturday November 05, 2022 @06:28PM (#33486585)

Yes. Good points.

Well, the first thing we might do is just a "Only an Administrator can make changes." setting where you only admin accounts are allowed to change settings. This one makes sense. Everything beyond that gets complicated and easy to circumvent fast.

(I also think the original question was more about blocking features and the likes.)

Protecting against other software is related, but also different. We have some decent protection here, albeit not against simply shutting Portmaster down.

[ Parent | on HN ]