Re: Opinion re an interesting article on Linux security in Linux Journal

[Ryan Russell <ryan () thievco com>]

Kenneth R. van Wyk wrote:

I think that we're seeing several of the features that have plagued the 
security of desktop Windows systems being increasingly incorporated into the 
desktops of Linux systems.  Further, the Linux desktop is truly maturing and, 
along with that, we're getting closer and closer to a critical mass of users.


So why do I feel that this is a Secure Coding issue and not (just) an OS 
security issue for Full-Disclosure and similar groups to discuss?  IMHO, the 
issues that we're dealing with get straight to the heart of the design of the 
desktop environments that are being deployed.  Sure, Linux has grown up with 
an arguably better separation of administrative and desktop users from day 
one, but even just a user-level email worm can be pretty frustrating (in case 
you haven't noticed from the size of your inbox in the last month or so).


What you're getting at is that clueless users want dangerous features, 
and that some programmers don't understand why it's a bad idea to 
provide them, and/or they don't have the option to leave them out (boss 
says they have to be there, etc...)  Further, cluesless users will pick 
the dangerous features if it is at all an option, i.e. if they can pick 
Lookout for Linux as a MUA, they will.


This is from personal experience supporting users, family, etc... that 
have no understanding of what "happens" to an attachment that they save 
to disk.  If the default directory they save to is not the same default 
that comes up when they launch Word and do File-Open, they are lost. 
If/when they ever endup running Linux, their understanding of 
filesystems is not going to increase.


I don't see a lot of room for secure programmers to help out.  Sure, 
they will not write MUAs that have the bad behavior, and the user will 
pick a bad one.  The programmer can write secure helper apps, but all 
programs that the MUA can invoke have to be secure.  The assumes that 
the MUA doesn't simply let the user launch ELFs or something.


                                        Ryan