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Recently i've come across the concept of what i see people calling a "Ghost Laptop" basically getting an old laptop, removing things like wireless card, hdd, camera, and only using Kali Linux in a Live USB My question is: does this serves any purpose such as black hat or security, or it's just performative tiktok bs? sorry if this is not the place to ask this, im new here

Its tiktok bs. If you want a secure laptop, then these things make sense but what are you going to do with it? Half of those tools on Kali wouldn't be worth much anyway. And security can be compromised if someone gets a hold of the laptop.

>>27110 i can only think of one reason: you are actually in a scenario where authorities care what you're doing, that they remotely watch intently enough to warrant all these extra steps, but can't get a warrant to, you know, search your house and/or put your ass in jail. or more likely, it's a symptom of some mental illness, but im not a psychiatrist or a career criminal, so what do i know maybe you're drawing CP in ms paint and printing it out through a USB connected printer for physical distribution, i guess that would be a felony use that might warrant this set up there's not a lot that laptop is useful for that your brain, a pen, paper and maybe a calculator isn't more practical for.

Skids and their obsession with kali lol

>>27115 In a situation where authorities are after you it's no use to have a laptop like that. Someone worried about being a fugitive at some point should rather go bury a couple of USB sticks with Tails and whatever else they might need in multiple locations. When on the run going to get your crime laptop from home is way too risky.

>Ghost Laptop It's a LARP. Your average Russian hacker uses a regular computer, maybe disk encryption, their superpower is not sharing their data with big tech as much as normal people do, it's not that deep. Kali is a distro with attack tools preinstalled. It won't do anything to defend your privacy or security, it's not for daily use. You need to understand there's no easy solution to privacy. Any company, software, tutorial that promises easy privacy for noobs is a scam.

>>27110 Kali linucks holy larp. God I hate tiktok skids so much it's unreal

What do you need networking tools, so 95% of what Kali Linux has to offer, if you don't have any networking hardware? "Hacking", if you're so inclined, is in it's essence doing things over a network, and I don't see what the purpose of those hacking tools would be if you remove all networking hardware. Also if you're that paranoid about a live USB writing to your HDD/SSD that you remove them entirely, then you Kali is the wrong tool for the job, as it's not magically more secure than stock Debian just because there are some hacking tools installed. Even the offline tools Kali has like the password cracking tools are absolutely useless since you wanted to have some old soykaftop. There is absolutely no use case for this setup that would make any sense.

I don't like Kali for pentesting regardless. I think Blackarch has a better range of tools and security in terms of a OS.

May be ok for offline encryption/decryption tasks, but at that point use a pencil/paper cipher.

>>27110 Removing wireless makes sense Removing non-volatile storage and camera might make sense But then suggesting to install Kali reveals this is yet another LARP. Why the hell would you use Kali if you don't even intend to use any remote connections (that is why you'd remove the wireless card, right)?

If you remove all networking hardware you basically have a PDA, which is cool but I bet most people would want more functionality than that. Also, why Kali at that point? You could use any LiveUSB and it would be the same right?

While what you're going on about is goyslop algorithmic bullshit, there are going to be real use cases for 'ghost laptops' as you call them. They won't have all the hardware stripped like you're suggesting, but having a linux device which is completely separate from your 'normal person' identity is going to become increasingly important as services such as digital ID are rolled out. Maintaining a 'real persona' by having real services linked to your real identity to avoid red flags. Older Thinkpads have a killswitch which will turn off the physical hardware for things such as your network and bluetooth card, and they all run fine on pretty much any linux distro. So, learn linux, learn some opsec, stay safe while netrunnning, choom.

>>27110 >Kali Linux >Without Internet For what fuarrrking purpose? Kali Linux is used for Internet penetration and security tests. You can't do that without the Internet! You watch too many TikTok bots and take their "advices" (more like thinly veiled trolling attempts) too seriously.

>>27290 The Wi-Fi card can serve as a potential entry point for attacks, which is why it is often removed in favor of using an Ethernet cable for internet connectivity.

>>27115 >maybe you're drawing CP in ms paint and printing it out through a USB connected printer for physical distribution or maybe someone who lives under the boot of a despotic regime where you can be locked up for reading derezzed books or making a casual joke online... like england >>27146 >Kali linucks holy larp and even back when kali used to have root as default login >God I hate tiktok skids so much it's unreal there were those occasional posts recommending the infamous hackerman os for use as daily driver

There are jeets and slopmongers who peddle junk on things like tiktok and reels for rubbish like this. The idea has credence given the direction of current legislation from tech capitals in the Northern Hemisphere; but the more private the device, the less useful in any fashion it is. Furthermore, given any scenario, removing things creates suspicion whereas damaging them is understandable. But, if this was meant to be a laptop you would cache with guns in the desert, why remove every useful component that makes it easier to operate and carry? I don't even care about the linuxlarp choice, that monkey football fuсk menagerie doesn't even make sense when you consider that your hardware is physically compromised in that it doesn't work. Want to connect to wifi because the ethernet port is in the router? fuarrrk no it won't go. Want to save 5-10 gb of data you absolutely need or save your pgp keys locally, or someone else's public key? Hope that soykaf loaded in ram if you only got one usb port? It didn't? You do? You at least have an ssd or spinny disk right? No? Get fuarrrked then. It breaks down really quick for being retarded as being the end user. If you take like two or four steps further than everyone else, you're already above 90% of the crowd. >>27288 >real use cases for 'ghost laptops' as you call them I'm more of an advocate for having an actual set of portable multiboot systems on usb and one reliable laptop. Much less space taken up, easier to plan for, accounts for lots of bullshit. >>27290 >what purpose Not op, but I suppose the purpose is one assumes they have to have all of the hacking tools on a liveboot usb that may or may not do persistent storage so he can't have data, but he could also be on the hook for having a pentest tool without a loisence

>>27110 Using Kali linux in a live USB won't protect you from IP leaks, and running it in RAM offers little to no advantage when you can just encrypt your drive and wipe it afterwards if you want. If you're worried about something like malware use Qubes.

Y'all do know what a dongle is, right?

What would you even be doing on such a machine? Do you have an encrypted drive that you plug in that you're doing "something" on and want to ensure there's no leaks on the laptop? Could just use FDE on the laptop drive too then... Where would you be using this? Someone could still snatch it out of your hands.

> guy makes good point > one stupid comment in post > every reply is about the stupid comment i hate this

>>27110 axaxxaxaxaxa Fun fact: I used to enjoy and recommend KALI LINUX a little throughout mid2010s - not for the leet haxxor USE, but solely due to leet haxxor FEEL. Context: I had one or more of those 2000s laptops not being able to run Windows 8.1 all while KALI LINUX has the least amount of productivity-ruining mind-interrupting fur. Oh, and I hated the idea of leaving metadata from my "typewritter computer" on my files. >What do you need networking tools, so 95% of what Kali Linux has to offer, if you don't have any networking hardware? Nononononono, you got it all wrong. Kali has this "the quieter you become..." slogan.

>>27375 I enjoyed running Kali Linux for that hacker feel as a teenager after watching Mr. Robot. Nowadays it's Arch for me for no because that was what I settled on years ago and I enjoy running the latest and the bestest Linux has to offer.

>>27110 lmao >>27376 >I use arch btw >contributes nothing to the conversation ok >>27354 where do you think OP made a good point? please elaborate

Why the fuarrrk is this thread still going after 3 months?

>>27376 >i use arch >systemd >bloat >>27582 It keeps getting bumped >>27354 >guy makes a good point Look if someone wants to completely disconnect everything from a laptop and run a live USB on it then they're obviously needing to do that for a reason, but I cannot say that everyone else has the same reason to do that. You're better off just practicing good opsec , filtering your connections through a VPN , Using a linux distro that just wurks for you. This is just simple things for the regular person to do on the internet. Also simply being careful with your data and the information that you put out there. >>27319 >jeets and slopmongers pushing soykaf on tiktok Couldn't agree with this more , and that is the general state of tiktok with most things >>27302 >lives under the boot of a strict regime I can agree with this and I think that is a valid usecase for something like this. >>27290 Yeah wouldn't be my go to distro if I was going to be doing something like this, but depends on the usecase if I needed a bunch of tools on the go then it would make sense

If you strip that many parts out might as well just use a remote connection to control a computer or a server in a remote location in another country via an ethernet connection. >>27115 Imagine being in a country drawing young stick figures is illegal. >>27288 Having switches was not unique to Thinkpad. Even old Dell Gateway laptops had network switches.

>>27110 It's not really that far off the mark. >Ghost Laptop >cheap laptop bought with cash >remove proprietary wireless card >use libre wireless card >use network that isn't yours >hide >use tails >receive/upload whatever >make physical device unrecoverable/nonexistent

Took a while but I think I figured the use case for this might just be someone who expects their computer to be seized so they would reduce financial loss from it maybe or if they are court mandated to not use the internet they may want to make their computer look non operational.

>>27110 read about computer forensics

>>27110 What good is kali if you don't know how to use any of the tools it comes with? It's less embarrassing when you get over the power trip script kiddie soykaf, hacking is also genuinely not as cool as it seems to have been in the 80's and 90's... it feels like less of a subculture and more like edgy marketing for a boring IT job.

>>27857 >more like edgy marketing for a boring IT job. preach if there's one thing I can't stand it's this notion that you don't need to know how to code to be "successful" in cYBeRseCuRiTy the hallmark of a fuarrrking moron imagine becoming a linguist without ever wanting to learn another language. how lame would that be? same principle applies here.