CompSec and Browsers

The pastor seeks to protect his flock and mine is virtual, so computer stuff is essential as the means.

There was a long period when Internet stuff was largely predictable. Even though aware of new threats arising every day, I found things had an entirely different feel a decade ago. The changes in browsers and websites were incremental over long periods of time. Now there are huge leaps and radical changes at random and frequent intervals, and the unintended vulnerabilities multiply exponentially. We used to have an instinctive knowledge about the Net that worked well enough, even if it was theoretically inaccurate. Now, even power users feel like confused neophytes. But it’s not just perception; the Internet really is changing radically.

There is no single force driving this. Today’s new capability becomes tomorrow’s requirement, all supposedly driven by the user demand for some change in what’s possible, which again drives new capabilities and new demands in a vicious cycle. All the while those who have actual authority and power to control things have their own demands, nowadays seldom published but pressed even more forcefully. There’s a distinct lag in response when an entity becomes very large, and government/corporate entities are simply way too big for anyone’s good. It takes big to do some kinds of good, but I don’t know of any big outfit of any sort that is run by good people — big is always bad in our world.

So it’s up to us to protect ourselves as best we can with full cynicism about those who provide what we cannot do for ourselves. When it comes to computer stuff, we are virtually all highly dependent. It shouldn’t be this time consuming, but it is. Distrust of everyone is wise, and eclectic solutions are probably most effective.

Our biggest problem is advertising: It’s the single biggest threat vector of all. That is, since it is so ubiquitous, criminals and governments are using it as the richest field of opportunity to seize control of private computing devices. Along with that is virtually every “cool” factor people put into their websites, in that what draws the masses is what draws the computer crackers. If what you seek is primarily entertainment, you are a victim waiting for a thug. I’m sorry, but the entertainment factor of the Net makes you a fool. It’s one thing to toss in some gratuitous decoration; that’s just human nature. It’s another thing to compete for attention through entertainment. To be blunt: Entertainment as a human desire is the root of all Internet evils.

For us here at Kiln of the Soul, we cannot afford to be seduced by the Lust of the Eyes. I’d love to share that message in the wider world, but you can guess how strong the resistance is. So I keep track of work-arounds with constant checking for the latest technology and threats for my computer ministry clients, particularly because the majority of them, even as ostensible Christians, do not embrace much of what I teach. For my parishioners and regular readers, I won’t be so easy on you.

Use the minimum browser possible for the task. Learn how to use more than one browser and restrict the cross contamination between them. Cripple the advertising as much as possible. Don’t tolerate the abuse. It’s not just a matter of inconvenience, but this is a genuine threat to sanity and peace with God. These people and their power are threatened by virtue, and nothing is worse for them than our brand of Christian Mysticism. Conventional Western morals are not good enough for us. Screw them and their implied social contract. Block all that crap as much as possible.

I could, just barely, run this blog from a plain text browser. It works okay for an emergency, but most of the time what I do here warrants opening up to most of the graphical features. I’ve resisted the pressure from WordPress to use their latest admin interface in the Dashboard and in the “enhanced posting experience” — which is pure bullshit because it restricts and removes certain controls and options the old one offered the blogger. Even WordPress is loaded with damned liars trying to sucker you into things that make it convenient for their controls and profits. So for now I use a standard graphical browser with all the regular features and some efforts to cripple advertising.

That happens right now to be Opera’s Beta browser for Linux — on Windows that’s the new standard Opera browser. This runs the same engine as Google Chrome (WebKit), but with a smarter interface. On some sites, the tools like Adblock and Ghostery break some functionality. You get less of that with Opera. For general surfing and viewing sites where the graphics is sort of the whole point of the presentation, I use Debian’s spin on Firefox, called Iceweasel. If you don’t know about it, it’s a long story. Basically it’s Firefox’s ESR branch with none of the Mozilla branding, possible because Firefox is Open Source. For Windows, I can recommend Pale Moon or Waterfox if you don’t like the ESR branch.

Even better is the Seamonkey Project in terms of protecting you and giving you control. However, it is more demanding of the user, as well. It has a lot of other goodies built in, like an email client, an HTML page builder, etc. The mail client is pretty much the same as Thunderbird. I’ve used it and recommend it for most people, but I prefer the old Opera browser with the built-in email client. For Windows, that’s offered separately as Opera Mail, not yet available on Linux.

Clean your browser cache, often and as completely as you can stand. I used to recommend CCleaner, but they’ve added very annoying features that are very difficult to turn off these days. Nifty powerful tools in there, but it’s very annoying to use. So now I typically recommend BleachBit for most folks because they don’t need all that extra stuff in the first place. A great many threats to your system are lurking in the browser cache, and BleachBit wipes that stuff away before it can hurt you. Run it at least once daily; pay attention to the configuration options.

But the vast majority of the time I use Lynx. You can chase older blog posts here about Lynx and find out how to get one of several versions that work on Windows. However, to be honest, the best way to use Lynx on Windows is to run Cygwin. That means learning how to install and use a whole new set of tools, I know. It’s essentially Linux stuff that runs on Windows in a semi-Linux environment. The reason for using Lynx is that it’s all about the content. Just tell me what you’ve got the say. Yes, it’s tough to navigate some sites in Lynx, but you get used to it after awhile. A few sites reject Lynx connections, so I also have Elinks on my system. It’s never been bounced, and it does the job differently than Lynx. You can learn more through search engines, but the point is avoiding all graphical display elements. This also avoids the majority of threats and annoyances.

A fair compromise that allows you to see still images is either Links2 or Dillo. I’ve covered them in the past few months on this blog (use the search function) and Windows versions are available (Dillo becomes D-Plus), if a bit cranky at times.

The point is, brothers and sisters, stop acting like Westernized secular-minded fools. The Internet is a tool we use rather like Paul used the Roman transportation infrastructure. We can’t change it and it’s here for now, so let’s take advantage of it for Christ’s glory. But by no means should you be a sucker for the enticing entertainment factors in our damned society.