How Do YOU Establish a Secure Computing Environment?

sneakyimp writes "We've seen increasingly creative ways for bad guys to compromise your system like infected pen drives, computers preloaded with malware, mobile phone apps with malware, and a $300 app that can sniff out your encryption keys. On top of these obvious risks, there are lingering questions about the integrity of common operating systems and cloud computing services. Do Windows, OSX, and Linux have security holes? Does Windows supply a backdoor for the U.S. or other governments? Should you really trust your Linux multiverse repository? Do Google and Apple data mine your private mobile phone data for private information? Does Ubuntu's sharing of my data with Amazon compromise my privacy? Can the U.S. Government seize your cloud data without a warrant? Can McAfee or Kaspersky really be trusted? Naturally, the question arises of how to establish and maintain an ironclad workstation or laptop for the purpose of handling sensitive information or doing security research. DARPA has approached the problem by awarding a $21.4M contract to Invincea to create a secure version of Android. What should we do if we don't have $21.4M USD? Is it safe to buy a PC from any manufacturer? Is it even safe to buy individual computer components and assemble one's own machine? Or might the motherboard firmware be compromised? What steps can one take to ensure a truly secure computing environment? Is this even possible? Can anyone recommend a through checklist or suggest best practices?"

Make it yourself

[solidraven]

Get the necessary equipment and make your own CPU. Also make the lithography masks yourself to ensure your paranoia score reaches a maximum level! Next proceed to make your own motherboard (making all the components yourself as mentioned earlier). Also you'll have to create your own CRT monitor (imagine if they intercepted the signals between the graphics card and the monitor!!!). And you might want to sit in a faraday cage made out of mu metal with your own personal lemon battery based power supply.

Ninjas

[davidwr]

Nobody but me gets to my abacus!

Re:Simples!

[v1]

No, to be truly secure, you put it in a room with no windows,

It's well-known that removing Windows makes your computer more secure.

Re:I Don't Use Computers

[Glock27]

Kudos to you AC! Not many of us have paranormal means of posting to /.!

I lie about everything

On the other hand, perhaps there's another explanation.....

Re:Easy...

[Teun]

It's a honey pot.