I think you're just misinterpreting that post and drawing the wrong conclusions. It's about a hardware attack, and a general purpose computer running Linux is far more vulnerable to the same kind of attacks. It ignores the passphrase feature and is unnecessarily dishonest too.
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1) Aside from technical comparisons guys. The main drawback of the hype is in its real-world-usage. In the non-tech attack surface. While "shitty linux" computer is multipurpose tool, a low-value-target, the Trezor is a single purpose HVT. Your home address and payment..
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2) ..details lead to your RL persona, giving the attacker answer on who, when, where, what and how. Once you are reasonably interesting, 5$ wrench technique can be applied by an attacker.
The "shitty linux" user is not visible, and remains happily shitty 🤔
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It can be purchased with Bitcoin using a pseudonym and you aren't forced to send it to your home address.
It has a strong mitigation against attacks based on coercion via the passphrase feature. Every passphrase is valid and leads to a different key (i.e. different wallets).
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I don't understand your proposed threat model anyway. You're suggesting that there will be a sophisticated targeted attack involving an attacker spying on you to the extent that they are aware of your purchase and target you. In that case, they would target a laptop too...
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Single purpose tool (even technically advanced), with high potential of valuable intel can be targeted much more easily than the multipurpose, free, anonymous, linux tool. It simply makes more sense to attack one publicly known HVT vendor and its infrastructs.
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Supply chain attacks on laptops with a complex list of trusted parts are far more likely and don't have less of a reward for the attacker. I'm not sure how buying a computer with Linux is supposed to be free or anonymous or how Linux is even relevant to your proposed attack.
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I don't know what point you're trying to make. If you want to go back to the original topic, it was me responding to whonix.org/wiki/OpenPGP#G and pointing out that an 100% Free Software hardware option with a deniable passphrase feature and on-device key gen with recovery exists.
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You mentioned that "full blown linux environment would dramatically less secure". It is simply not ☺ Depends who uses it and how and under what sec asumptions.
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It is dramatically less secure. That's the reality, sorry. It has massive attack surface and the proposed usage of encryption loses the nice properties of the passphrase implementation. You could of course use software with a similar approach on it but it doesn't change the rest.
If you feel this way and it fits your real world sec asumptions and models, enjoy ☺ It doesnt fit mine.
Trezor is beyond any doubt, an excellent technical solution. It makes it but an excellent, one point failure HVT target, with high ROI potential for an attacker.
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twitter.com/DanielMicay/st
It's objectively far more secure against an online attack, offline attack or coercion than the proposed alternative. Running the Trezor firmware on hardware with an SoC more hardened against tampering would be a step up for offline attacks too.
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Replying to @Ishan_Ishana @DusanDuda and 2 others
The proposed approach is objectively far less secure against an online attack, offline attack and coercion. A targeted attack on an individual is easier with a laptop. Your only argument is your theory that a supply chain attack on Trezor is more likely than $LAPTOP_VENDOR.
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