Ubuntu Privacy Remix (UPR) is a modified live CD based on Ubuntu.Its goal is to provide a completely isolated working environment where private data can be dealt with safely and to protect data against unsolicited access.
Networking is intentionally disabled and saving data to mounted volumes is not allowed. The live CD is not installable to hard disk.
Updates (via Distrowatch):
Mark Preetorius has announced the release of a new update of Ubuntu Privacy Remix 9.04, an unofficial Ubuntu variant whose goal is to provide a completely isolated working environment and to protect data against unsolicited access: "The Ubuntu Privacy Remix team has published the fourth stable release of Ubuntu Privacy Remix. All software packages, including the kernel, were updated to their newest versions to close security holes and fix bugs. This will be the last version of Ubuntu Privacy Remix 9.04, a release candidate of its successor, version 10.04, is already available. Due to space constraints, Firefox (which was only good for viewing HTML files anyway) had to be replaced with Midori."
Visit the project's home page to read the brief release announcement.
Download: upr-9.04r4.zip (693MB).
Ubuntu Privacy Remix is a modified Live-CD based on Ubuntu Linux. UPR is not intended for permanent installation on hard disk. The goal of Ubuntu Privacy Remix is to provide an isolated, working environment where private data can be dealt with safely. The system installed on the computer running UPR remains untouched.
The risk of theft of such private data arises not only from "conventional" criminals, trojans. rootkits, keyloggers etc. In many countries, measures are taken or being prepared aiming at spying and monitoring its citizens. Ubuntu Privacy Remix is a tool to protect your data against unsolicited access.
But I am already encrypting my data...
Good encryption is of course one of the most important measures to protect your data. Ubuntu Privacy Remix contains the well-known cryptographis software TrueCrypt and GnuPG. But the security of encryption relies not only on the security of the used software.
Trojans, Rootkits, Keyloggers can lower or even circumvent the security of cryptographic software.
For example software like Microsoft Office or Google Desktop, which create an unencrypted copy on hard disk when opening files from an encrypted TrueCrypt-Volume.
Or a trojan that waits for you to open a TrueCrypt-Container, mailing your sensitive files to someone else at the next opportuinity.
Or malicious software that logs your keystrokes, including the passphrase for your secret GPG-Key, and mailing it along with the key to some unknown attacker. Heor she could then read all your past and future Mails he/she gets his hands on.
Security is a system
These few examples show that security means the security of the whole working environment, and that security can never be provided by one program alone. Editing, de- and encryption of sensitive data should therefore be done with a system that
- never has or had contact to untrustworthy networks like the internet
- cannot leave data unencrypted on the hard drive, not even unnoticed or by accident
- offers no opportunity to spyware to permanently install onto the system
Getting your own UPR CD.
Ubuntu Privacy Remix is a free project. Anyone finding it useful can use UPR free of charge and is encouraged to send suggestions, bug reports and criticism to us.
The image of the CD can be downloaded here. The UPR developers can neither guarantee that the download servers never get compromised, nor can we guarantee that downloads are not being redirected to other servers by DNS spoofing or similar. The authenticity of the image can be verified using our GPG-Signature.
Howtos.
| Here you can find several Howtos and videos for working with Ubuntu Privacy Remix: | |
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