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?)
My mistake. The concept of “doing taxes” is usually US-specific, I don’t really hear about that kind of thing from users in other, more civilized countries.
Genuinely curious though… Why use a VM for taxes?
No worries.
As for your questions:
In Germany we can optionally file taxes. If we were overtaxed, we can claim the overcharged amount back.
As for why not on my main PC: I don’t want that kind of software clogging up my main rig. Also helps keeping my digital mess a bit more organized ;)