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An email client certainly needs the capabilities mentioned there. The ILOVEYOU virus (which is what the page refers to) was an executable (a VBS script but any

An email client certainly needs the capabilities mentioned there. The ILOVEYOU virus (which is what the page refers to) was an executable (a VBS script but any executable could do the same thing) that asked Outlook Express for the address book and use it to send mail with itself as an attachment. The issue with it was that Outlook Express was too happy to run programs attached to mail (also that Windows hide file extensions by default and... people tend to respond to affection - at the end of the day you can't solve social issues with technical solutions) without even a warning (though a warning would be most likely ignored anyway due to the social aspect of the message - which is also what would happen with the warning in the dialog mentioned in the linked page too). And at some point you'll have to request these capabilities and the user will have to grant them. So the user, as is seen with mobile permissions nowadays that serve more to make developers feel good about providing security and pat each other on the back about how thoughtful they are (meanwhile there is a ton of malware on Android phones), will simply grant the permissions because they want to run the application - the reason they went into obtaining it in the first place. You can see the issue clearly in that infamous video from Linus Tech Tips where Linus tried to install Steam and end up breaking his desktop despite lots of warnings from the system - he had a goal (to run the program) and in the pursuit of that goal he ignored pretty much every warning the OS gave him, including even forcing him to type "yes i know what i am doing". These solutions are pointless and only help to make the programmers who implement feel good that they implemented them. Like the solution to problem above where now you have to make a special file in the root folder to do that, as if someone who ignores everything in the pursuit of a goal to type "yes i know what i am going" aren't going to type "sudo touch /.magic_file" (that they copied from a forum post). The only way to stop people from doing something it to make it technically impossible to do it. But at that point you are starting to make tasks impossible to achieve and people use computers to do things and anything that goes towards that is missing the forest (people using computers to do things) for the tree (some things can be unsafe so let's not anyone do it).

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
so, I can't help but note that when I said an email client should not need to request these capabilities and anything that did would be malware, you said an email client definitely needed to request these capabilities and gave as the example the ILOVEYOU virus.
- badsectoracula 5y ago
  Yes? In a system based on permissions (which is basically what a capability system is) somehow applications need to gain those permissions - so it makes sense that an email client will need to request them. Otherwise how is it going to work if it cannot access the internet, the address book or any other functionality it might need? BTW the ILOVEYOU virus example is what the linked page brought up, not me. They call it "Love Bug" but that is just another name for the same virus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILOVEYOU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILOVEYOU
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    yeah I'm old enough to be familiar with these things - is there some reason that you seem to think I'm in my early twenties? >In a system based on permissions (which is basically what a capability system is) somehow applications need to gain those permissions - so it makes sense that an email client will need to request them. Otherwise how is it going to work if it cannot access the internet, the address book or any other functionality it might need? first of all, most capability based security assumes applications have the permissions natural for them to achieve their task, thus an email client would have access to the address book. It would have access to read previous emails received, it would have access to get latest emails and send emails and display the emails. It might have permission to play a beep tone when email arrives. It would have all the normal common permissions required to be an email client. second of all, the access for the address book was requested by an attachment that was opened. Not the email client. To quote the first link: "In either case, each time an executable program in your email executed, each time it needed a capability, you the user would be asked whether to grant that capability or not. " To reiterate, it is not the email client that needs to ask every time it wants access to the address book, it is any executable opened from it. third of all, you have still not explained why opening an attachment would need those particular permissions. The linked article uses the virus specifically because something opened by an email client should not need those permissions! I mean I guess, since you said 'yes?' to my earlier question as to whether your argument was that those capabilities should be allowed because it was the kind of thing a virus asked for that is really your argument!?! Most people who talk about email security talk about what an awful application outlook is/was because of its bundling of the browser in to render html opening up all sorts of security holes but you seem to think that an email client (here I drop back to talking about the client instead of an attached executable) should be able to post to random websites data from the users address book based on instructions received in an email? I've never actually seen an email client that needed to do that? Why do you think that it needs to do that? I'm going in circles here but - because a famous virus needed to do it? Really? Fourth of all, your earlier example of someone messing up their system by installing Steam when they shouldn't is probably not the same as giving the Love Bug access it shouldn't have, but even if it were, yes people can do stupid things, your argument seems to be that any system that tries to help people stop before they do the stupid things will be doomed to failure instead of the common belief that some people will be stopped in their stupidity and caused to reconsider. It seems frankly weird because the only end to your argument that makes any sense would be no security whatsoever, because people will try to do stupid things thinking that the stupid thing they are attempting to do will somehow give them what they want.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

so, I can't help but note that when I said an email client should not need to request these capabilities and anything that did would be malware, you said an email client definitely needed to request these capabilities and gave as the example the ILOVEYOU virus.

badsectoracula 5y ago
Yes? In a system based on permissions (which is basically what a capability system is) somehow applications need to gain those permissions - so it makes sense that an email client will need to request them. Otherwise how is it going to work if it cannot access the internet, the address book or any other functionality it might need? BTW the ILOVEYOU virus example is what the linked page brought up, not me. They call it "Love Bug" but that is just another name for the same virus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILOVEYOU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILOVEYOU
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  yeah I'm old enough to be familiar with these things - is there some reason that you seem to think I'm in my early twenties? >In a system based on permissions (which is basically what a capability system is) somehow applications need to gain those permissions - so it makes sense that an email client will need to request them. Otherwise how is it going to work if it cannot access the internet, the address book or any other functionality it might need? first of all, most capability based security assumes applications have the permissions natural for them to achieve their task, thus an email client would have access to the address book. It would have access to read previous emails received, it would have access to get latest emails and send emails and display the emails. It might have permission to play a beep tone when email arrives. It would have all the normal common permissions required to be an email client. second of all, the access for the address book was requested by an attachment that was opened. Not the email client. To quote the first link: "In either case, each time an executable program in your email executed, each time it needed a capability, you the user would be asked whether to grant that capability or not. " To reiterate, it is not the email client that needs to ask every time it wants access to the address book, it is any executable opened from it. third of all, you have still not explained why opening an attachment would need those particular permissions. The linked article uses the virus specifically because something opened by an email client should not need those permissions! I mean I guess, since you said 'yes?' to my earlier question as to whether your argument was that those capabilities should be allowed because it was the kind of thing a virus asked for that is really your argument!?! Most people who talk about email security talk about what an awful application outlook is/was because of its bundling of the browser in to render html opening up all sorts of security holes but you seem to think that an email client (here I drop back to talking about the client instead of an attached executable) should be able to post to random websites data from the users address book based on instructions received in an email? I've never actually seen an email client that needed to do that? Why do you think that it needs to do that? I'm going in circles here but - because a famous virus needed to do it? Really? Fourth of all, your earlier example of someone messing up their system by installing Steam when they shouldn't is probably not the same as giving the Love Bug access it shouldn't have, but even if it were, yes people can do stupid things, your argument seems to be that any system that tries to help people stop before they do the stupid things will be doomed to failure instead of the common belief that some people will be stopped in their stupidity and caused to reconsider. It seems frankly weird because the only end to your argument that makes any sense would be no security whatsoever, because people will try to do stupid things thinking that the stupid thing they are attempting to do will somehow give them what they want.