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> …breeze right through an in-retrospect-sketchy authentication dialog… I can't blame them for this. A surprising number of apps ask for root (inc. Adobe insta

> …breeze right through an in-retrospect-sketchy authentication dialog… I can't blame them for this. A surprising number of apps ask for root (inc. Adobe installers and Chrome). As far as I know, it's to make updates more reliable when an admin installs a program for a day-to-day user who can't write to /Applications and /Library. We're long overdue for better sandboxing on desktop (outside of app stores).

mstade 9y ago
True story. The status quo unfortunately conditions people into "just answer yes to the stupid questions" which then renders everything from developer certs to elevation warnings moot. "But you got a warning" is little recourse for when your hard drive is encrypted by some ransomware. (I know I'm mixing current events here – cut a fella some slack!)
- thirdsun 9y ago
  Yes. I'm pretty sure WannaCry and its variants could have asked users with a system dialog whether it should proceed encrypting all their data and we still would have seen similar numbers of affected machines (if operated by a human).
sneak 9y ago
I refuse to install Adobe anything on my main partition for this reason. Remember Flash?
- marksomnian 9y ago
  That doesn't really work when you're a creative professional who has to use Adobe products for their day job.
  - pmiller2 9y ago
    A lot of those products are now cloud-based.
    - dylz 9y ago
      afaik the cloud part just means that it's a monthly subscription that requires internet access to remain activated
      - egypturnash 9y ago
        This is correct, I had my win10 tablet start bitching that it hadn't connected to Adobe's authorization servers in too long (despite the fact that it regularly has internet access, wtf Adobe) just the other day. There's multiple gigs of Adobe executables and support files on my computer.
        coldtea 9y ago
        >despite the fact that it regularly has internet access, wtf Adobe There's Adobe's update etc. app that needs to run that checks for that, it's not the individual apps themselves.
        egypturnash 9y ago
        Pretty sure that'd been running all the time. Not 100% sure, this is the only Windows machine I've ever owned and getting shit to reliably run on bootup is a mystery to me.
    - KineticLensman 9y ago
      The Data can be kept in the cloud and the Adobe stock libraries are cloud-based, but the products (Photoshop, etc) are still installed locally and many users will keep data local as well. Edit - added detail.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      None of the Adobe core apps is Cloud based. They are ordinary programs that run natively and download on your machine -- they just have a subscription model that checks your license over the internet, and for that they called the suite "Creative Cloud".
kefka 9y ago
It doesn't matter that much, honestly. I only do root for administration tasks. Filesystem stuff, hardware, server config. All the goodies are in my homedir. Exfiltration is easy as that. Running bad binaries is easy as running under my username. In the end, there's no protections of what my username can do to files owned by my user. And that's why nasty tool that: 1. generates priv/pub key using gpg 2. emails priv key elsewhere and deletes 3. crypts everything it can grab in ~ 4. Pops up nasty message demanding money works so easily, and so well. The only thing I know that can thwart attacks like this is Qubes, or a well setup SELinux.. But SELinux then impedes usage. (down the rabbit hole we go). Edit: Honestly, I'm waiting for a Command and Control to be exclusively in Tor, email keys only through a Tor gateway, and also serve as a slave node to control and use. I could certainly see a "If you agree to keep this application on here, we will give you your files back over the course of X duration". There's plenty more nefarious ways this all can be used to cause more damage, and "reward" the user with their files back, by being a slave node for more infection. IIRC, there was one of these malware tools that granted access to files if you screwed over your friends and they paid.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- problems 9y ago
  > Edit: Honestly, I'm waiting for a Command and Control to be exclusively in Tor, email keys only through a Tor gateway, and also serve as a slave node to control and use Correct me if I'm wrong, but most ransomware is operated almost completely through Tor. Doing email this way may be a problem (for obvious reasons), but for anonymity and uptime's sake most rely on it pretty heavily.
  - kefka 9y ago
    Oh yeah, Bitcoin/Tor gateway is how they're doing it. But I'm not seeing any sort of botnet functionality at least in WanaCry. Or worse yet, I can see a daemon sitting around, snarfing juicy details and exfiltration. Along with that, it could contribute to booters' network. And as a near-last resort, it crypts everything to extract more out of the user. It can then monetize even this by being an infector and staying on the network (not reformatting). Another thing that goes along with this infector idea, is by using OnionBalance, and using a load-balanced onion site to promote and speed up various "things". Since we're dealing with illegal, well, there's plenty of things that could be leveraged to host. Yes, I do a lot of things in Tor onionland. ALl of my network exists in there, as does control to much of my services, MQTT, database, and more. This is how I use it: https://hackaday.io/project/12985-multisite-homeofficehackerspace-automation https://hackaday.io/project/12985-multisite-homeofficehacker...
kitsunesoba 9y ago
macOS has optional per app sandboxing already, but many developers elect to sidestep it because it's a buggy, rigid mess. Last I worked with it there were issues with simple things like displaying an open/save panel inside of a sandbox — sometimes when the user requested one, an error would occur under the hood and give zero feedback to the user. It's also a pain in the rear for apps that need to be able to arbitrarily access files on disk to function.
- jakobegger 9y ago
  Yes. I have a Mac app that is sandboxed, and occasionally it fails to open files the user selected in the Open dialog. There is zero diagnostics available, besides a message stating "permission denied" (the system error message confuses users even more by suggesting to check file system permissions). All I can tell my customers is to restart their Macs. Extremely frustrating.
ams6110 9y ago
There is no reason Mac/Linux apps should need root to install unless they are installing something like a kernel module. I have ~/Applications and ~/Library which is where anything I install should go.
z3t4 9y ago
it does matter what you want to protect from. often using root to start an app can actually make it more secure by allowing it to start worker processes with a non privileged user and do some sandboxing with name spaces.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

mstade 9y ago

True story. The status quo unfortunately conditions people into "just answer yes to the stupid questions" which then renders everything from developer certs to elevation warnings moot. "But you got a warning" is little recourse for when your hard drive is encrypted by some ransomware. (I know I'm mixing current events here – cut a fella some slack!)

thirdsun 9y ago
Yes. I'm pretty sure WannaCry and its variants could have asked users with a system dialog whether it should proceed encrypting all their data and we still would have seen similar numbers of affected machines (if operated by a human).

sneak 9y ago

I refuse to install Adobe anything on my main partition for this reason. Remember Flash?

marksomnian 9y ago
That doesn't really work when you're a creative professional who has to use Adobe products for their day job.
- pmiller2 9y ago
  A lot of those products are now cloud-based.
  - dylz 9y ago
    afaik the cloud part just means that it's a monthly subscription that requires internet access to remain activated
    - egypturnash 9y ago
      This is correct, I had my win10 tablet start bitching that it hadn't connected to Adobe's authorization servers in too long (despite the fact that it regularly has internet access, wtf Adobe) just the other day. There's multiple gigs of Adobe executables and support files on my computer.
      - coldtea 9y ago
        >despite the fact that it regularly has internet access, wtf Adobe There's Adobe's update etc. app that needs to run that checks for that, it's not the individual apps themselves.
        egypturnash 9y ago
        Pretty sure that'd been running all the time. Not 100% sure, this is the only Windows machine I've ever owned and getting shit to reliably run on bootup is a mystery to me.
  - KineticLensman 9y ago
    The Data can be kept in the cloud and the Adobe stock libraries are cloud-based, but the products (Photoshop, etc) are still installed locally and many users will keep data local as well. Edit - added detail.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    None of the Adobe core apps is Cloud based. They are ordinary programs that run natively and download on your machine -- they just have a subscription model that checks your license over the internet, and for that they called the suite "Creative Cloud".

kefka 9y ago

It doesn't matter that much, honestly. I only do root for administration tasks. Filesystem stuff, hardware, server config. All the goodies are in my homedir. Exfiltration is easy as that. Running bad binaries is easy as running under my username. In the end, there's no protections of what my username can do to files owned by my user. And that's why nasty tool that: 1. generates priv/pub key using gpg 2. emails priv key elsewhere and deletes 3. crypts everything it can grab in ~ 4. Pops up nasty message demanding money works so easily, and so well. The only thing I know that can thwart attacks like this is Qubes, or a well setup SELinux.. But SELinux then impedes usage. (down the rabbit hole we go). Edit: Honestly, I'm waiting for a Command and Control to be exclusively in Tor, email keys only through a Tor gateway, and also serve as a slave node to control and use. I could certainly see a "If you agree to keep this application on here, we will give you your files back over the course of X duration". There's plenty more nefarious ways this all can be used to cause more damage, and "reward" the user with their files back, by being a slave node for more infection. IIRC, there was one of these malware tools that granted access to files if you screwed over your friends and they paid.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
problems 9y ago
> Edit: Honestly, I'm waiting for a Command and Control to be exclusively in Tor, email keys only through a Tor gateway, and also serve as a slave node to control and use Correct me if I'm wrong, but most ransomware is operated almost completely through Tor. Doing email this way may be a problem (for obvious reasons), but for anonymity and uptime's sake most rely on it pretty heavily.
- kefka 9y ago
  Oh yeah, Bitcoin/Tor gateway is how they're doing it. But I'm not seeing any sort of botnet functionality at least in WanaCry. Or worse yet, I can see a daemon sitting around, snarfing juicy details and exfiltration. Along with that, it could contribute to booters' network. And as a near-last resort, it crypts everything to extract more out of the user. It can then monetize even this by being an infector and staying on the network (not reformatting). Another thing that goes along with this infector idea, is by using OnionBalance, and using a load-balanced onion site to promote and speed up various "things". Since we're dealing with illegal, well, there's plenty of things that could be leveraged to host. Yes, I do a lot of things in Tor onionland. ALl of my network exists in there, as does control to much of my services, MQTT, database, and more. This is how I use it: https://hackaday.io/project/12985-multisite-homeofficehackerspace-automation https://hackaday.io/project/12985-multisite-homeofficehacker...

kitsunesoba 9y ago

macOS has optional per app sandboxing already, but many developers elect to sidestep it because it's a buggy, rigid mess. Last I worked with it there were issues with simple things like displaying an open/save panel inside of a sandbox — sometimes when the user requested one, an error would occur under the hood and give zero feedback to the user. It's also a pain in the rear for apps that need to be able to arbitrarily access files on disk to function.

jakobegger 9y ago
Yes. I have a Mac app that is sandboxed, and occasionally it fails to open files the user selected in the Open dialog. There is zero diagnostics available, besides a message stating "permission denied" (the system error message confuses users even more by suggesting to check file system permissions). All I can tell my customers is to restart their Macs. Extremely frustrating.

ams6110 9y ago

There is no reason Mac/Linux apps should need root to install unless they are installing something like a kernel module. I have ~/Applications and ~/Library which is where anything I install should go.

z3t4 9y ago

it does matter what you want to protect from. often using root to start an app can actually make it more secure by allowing it to start worker processes with a non privileged user and do some sandboxing with name spaces.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]