Messages in this thread | | | From | Gerrit Huizenga <> | Subject | Re: [RESEND][RFC][PATCH 2/7] implementation of LSM hooks | Date | Tue, 18 Apr 2006 09:50:41 -0700 |
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On Tue, 18 Apr 2006 12:58:19 BST, Christoph Hellwig wrote: > On Mon, Apr 17, 2006 at 06:44:51PM -0700, Gerrit Huizenga wrote: > > > > On Mon, 17 Apr 2006 23:55:25 BST, Christoph Hellwig wrote: > > > On Mon, Apr 17, 2006 at 03:15:29PM -0700, Gerrit Huizenga wrote: > > > > configure correctly that most of them disable it. In theory, LSM + > > > > something like AppArmour provides a much simpler security model for > > > > > > apparmor falls into the findamentally broken category above, so it's > > > totally uninteresting except as marketing candy for the big red company. > > > > Is there a pointer to why it is fundamentally broken? I haven't seen > > such comments before but it may be that I've been hanging out on the > > wrong lists or spending too much time inhaling air at 30,000 feet. > > It's doing access control on pathnames, which can't work in unix enviroments. > It's following the default permit behaviour which causes pain in anything > security-related (compare [1]). > > > [1] http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/
Interesting but I'm not impressed by the article. I think Stephen's reference has a bit more meat to it. According to this article my laptop should set so I have a white list of apps (which would be really really long, ergo why make a list? I run much more than 5 apps on a day to day basis). Even on a general purpose machine that is shared by many users will have a large number of apps. When your white list is a large percentage of the apps that are on the machine, these two approaches start to converge. In the end it always comes down to "how much security are you prepared to endure, given that security almost always limits user capability".
Based on what this article says, it sounds like MACs and ACLs would be required because without them they permit you to share data with people that may not need that data, people should only have access to the limited set of applications and data that they need, and the machine should be tightened down to the point where the security approaches absolute security.
While that might fit in with "perfect" security, most people aren't interested in that level of perfection. "Default permit" was so popular because it caught the obvious exploits without overly limiting people's ability to use a machine. It is still pretty commonly used today. Also, any security protection has a whole range of protections, from firewalls, limiting which packages are installed, accounts/passwords, validation of users, etc. Does everyone have to have "perfect" security or are there places where a "less than perfect, easy to use, good enough" security policy? I believe there is room for both based on the end users' needs and desires. But that is just my opinion.
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