This maybe a dumb question but i became paranoid all of a sudden and wanted some answers because i can’t find it anywhere else nor can i sleep without it. Like even if i did flash linux on a lets say amd laptop couldn’t the chip itself be spying on me ? Also i understand bootloaders are stored or rom is there a way to know what else is stored on it are roms open source ? Are cpu’s open source and companies like asus store their logos and shit on their mother boards so what else could they be storing ? Are there open source alternatives for these parts ? Are we all being privacy cautios for nothing ? I know we can use firewall but wouldn’t the chip integrated have the ability to bye pass it ?
I know there are linux laptops but having a pre installed linux and some switches isn’t gonna solve the problem do they use open source roms and motherboard ? Are there any fully open source chipsets ? I want to know the same about smartphones too ?
It should be clarified that using Wireshark on the hardware in question is still subject to what the operating system is allowing your security context to see - meaning a rootkit or hardware level compromise could hide its traffic in that case.
Intercepting all traffic coming from the machine using another network node is a good idea though. Wireshark or an IDS like Snort would both work for that.
Yeah, you want a switch with port mirroring. That way you can send everything that hits your router to a separate device to monitor.
Still doesn’t help with phones though. I don’t think there is any way to truly verify the cellular modem’s connections.