Not sure if this fits here…

An OPSEC community would probably say no, so I probably don’t need to ask in those communities. But I’m curious about a (digital) pirate’s perspective on this issue…

I mean, the sources listed here are supposedly “safe” right? But honestly, how much would you trust these “safe” sources?

When doing sensitive tasks like banking or filing taxes, do you:

  • Use a different OS on the same machine? (Dualboot)
  • Or put the pirated content inside a virtual machine?
  • Or just use a completely separate computer?

And since PC is much different than a Smartphone:

  • Would the extra sandboxing on Smartphones make pirating games on a Smartphone much safer compared to on a PC? (Not that there are much mobile games worth playing, just curious)

(PC in this context referring to all personal computers, regardless of OS)

And last question:

  • Non-installed/non-executable files such as .mp4 .mkv .mp3 .pdf .epub, are mostly safe right? I mean, you are using another program to opening it, not executing a file, there aren’t much attack vectors as long as the video player / ebook viewer is up to date right? (Or am I understanding it wrong?)
  • Miles O'Brien@startrek.website
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    3 days ago

    Ah. Well that’s a relief, I removed foxit, and never had anything Adobe.

    I open the pdfs in inkscape to pull the vector files and save them as an svg. There’s probably a simpler way, but this allows me to open the vector in a lot more programs like my laser software and my CAD programs.

    The only pdfs that get printed like a normal person are small rc planes and the files are from trusted sources.

    It’s nice to know I can do a little extra to protect myself from pdf based attacks though, thanks for the info!