If it was only E.T., I would not be worried.
More and more “stuff” uses my hardware and my internet connection to call home. Often without asking for permission. I am one of those surfing the web with Noscript. I also run a local DNS server and do a few other things to stay safe online. Nevertheless, with every new generation of operating systems and software, integration with the Internet becomes more pervasive. I want to integrate on my terms, for example to exercise parental control.
I am reviewing my computing infrastructure, and the next step is to run every operating system in a sandbox: A VirtualBox guest inside a secured Linux distribution. The host’s firewall should be an inclusive firewall, block everything except traffic that is specifically allowed.
So far I found some material about people using IPcop in one VirtualBox to firewall another VirtualBox, but this seem a big redundancy to me. Why not running IPcop as host system? Of course the host system would have no other purpose other than firewalling the virtual boxes, so even Ubuntu would run inside a VirtualBox. Am I missing something? Research continues, hints and help are welcome.
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