If you have the Brave Browser installed on your Windows devices, then you may also have Brave VPN services installed on the machine. Brave installs these services without user consent on Windows devices.

Brave Firewall + VPN is an extra service that Brave users may subscribe to for a monthly fee. Launched in mid-2022, it is a cooperation between Brave Software, maker of Brave Browser, and Guardian, the company that operates the VPN and the firewall solution. The firewall and VPN solution is available for $9.99 per month.

  • @hottari@lemmy.ml
    3•8 months ago

    You still need to manually enable the service. The configuration of the service has zero effect on its activation or lifecycle.

    • calm.like.a.bombEnglish
      9•8 months ago

      Huh? Any script can create a service, enable it and then start it. What would make you think the brave package (or just the application itself) can’t do this?

      • @hottari@lemmy.ml
        2•8 months ago

        Not possible to start or enable a created service without user intervention. You don’t know what you are talking about.

        • Ferk
          11•8 months ago

          Systemd “enabled” services are literal symlinks… whenever a target runs, it tries to start also all the service files on its “wants” directory.

          You can literally enable any service for next boot by making a symlink in /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/ (or whichever other target you want it to run on) as root (and installation scripts are run as root).

          ln -s /usr/lib/systemd/system/whatever.service  /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/whatever.service
          • @hottari@lemmy.ml
            2•8 months ago

            This is actually very close (just tested and confirmed it). I somehow stand corrected about requiring manual enablement but this is just using the package manager to do the dirty work for you.

            However the program itself cannot write into those directories without root permissions. You still have to allow your package manager to do this with root permissions as mentioned.

              • @hottari@lemmy.ml
                1•8 months ago

                Installing a package requires root which will automatically give the package manager permission to write anywhere on the system. To create a systemd service in user that will automatically start at boot requires root, someguy here commented with the how.

                However you can run any installed binary via Desktop files as a user (no root) on login by writing to ~/.config/autostart.

                • @GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
                  2•8 months ago

                  My comment wasn’t about installing the package. You seemed to think that systemd required root, which it does not. Further, you can have systemd user processes start at boot. I do this exact thing with Duplicacy, no root required.

                  • @hottari@lemmy.ml
                    1•8 months ago

                    The entire premise is for a package/manager to create a running/permanent service that will be started after boot AND does not require user intervention (for the avoidance of doubt, enabling the systemd service counts as intervention).

                    One way to do this is to create the service file and do the symlink to a folder that systemd automatically runs on boot. For both user and system systemd files you require root to make these modifications.

                    Another way is to create a Desktop file in the path I shared.

                    If you have more ways I’d be happy to hear them.

        • calm.like.a.bombEnglish
          6•8 months ago

          OK… challenge accepted. Maybe you don’t know about systemd user services.

          Content of mytrojan.sh:

          #!/usr/bin/env bash

echo "Writing the service unit file"

cat > ~/.config/systemd/user/my_test_service.service << EOF
[Unit]
Description=Script Daemon For Test User Services

[Service]
Type=simple
User=
#Group=
ExecStart=/home/user/bin/myscript.sh
Restart=on-failure
StandardOutput=file:%h/log_file

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
EOF

echo "Reloading systemd for the user"
systemctl --user daemon-reload || exit 1

echo "Enabling and starting the service"
systemctl --user enable --now my_test_service.service

          Content of myscript.sh:

          $ cat ~/bin/myscript.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash

while true
do
    now=$(date)
    me=$(whoami)
    echo "User $me at $now"
    sleep 10
done

          Now run the script (mytrojan.sh) and check service status after that:

          $ ./mytrojan.sh
Writing the service unit file
Reloading systemd for the user
Enabling and starting the service
$ systemctl --user status my_test_service.service
● my_test_service.service - Script Daemon For Test User Services
     Loaded: loaded (/home/user/.config/systemd/user/my_test_service.service; enabled; vendor preset: ena>
     Active: active (running) since Thu 2023-10-19 12:15:21 EEST; 6s ago
   Main PID: 1666383 (myscript.sh)
      Tasks: 2 (limit: 18757)
     Memory: 556.0K
        CPU: 4ms
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/app.slice/my_test_service.service
             ├─1666383 /bin/bash /home/user/bin/myscript.sh
             └─1666387 sleep 10

Oct 19 12:15:21 tesla systemd[1866318]: Started Script Daemon For Test User Services
            • @helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
              6•8 months ago

              Now imagine that the script is set to run as part of the brave installation - you type “yes” please download brave, brave installs brave and runs this script. Linux isn’t immune to malware as you seem to think.

              • @hottari@lemmy.ml
                2•8 months ago

                You would need the power of root to do all these aforementioned things (run a VPN service).

                And am not saying that Linux is immune to malware, just that it’s not out of the norm to have package managers install services crucial for operation during installation. Since Windows doesn’t have package managers, I’m gonna replace package managers with packages in this reasoning.