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> On linux I have no issues installing "native" apps whatsoever You should. Linux provides pretty much zero protection for your data. Any app you install can s
by user-the-name 5y ago
> On linux I have no issues installing "native" apps whatsoever
You should. Linux provides pretty much zero protection for your data. Any app you install can spy on the data of any other app you're using, and all your personal files.
Other OSes are slowly introducing some limitations and protections here, but Linux is really not doing much at all.
- CorrectHorseBat 5y agoOn Linux there's Flatpak and Wayland which aim to introduce more protection
- ncmncm 5y agoNot meaningfully. If you have to install an app, only putting it in a VM can ever help much. If you run X (except on Qubes!) any program can see everything every other X program is doing -- all keystrokes, all mouse clicks, all pixels.
- nicce 5y agoThis is not true. You can write AppArmor rules which can restrict pretty much everything. SELinux is also a thing, and introduces a lot of features that you can't see in the Windows for example. > X program is doing -- all keystrokes, all mouse clicks, all pixels. Parent was mentioning Wayland specifically to remove this threat.
- drran 5y agoIn Linux, just run an app as separate user. Linux is a multi-tenant OS, so users are well protected from each other. If you need to share files with program, share them via a shared folder, e.g. `/tmp`.
- CorrectHorseBat 5y agoDoesn't sound very practical, especially for grahical programs.
- drran 5y agoSecurity is compromise. You can share your whole home directory, if you trust the software, but it will make any kind of protection useless, or you can write a helper tool, which will grant access to a single selected file using a hard link, to make alias for file content, or synchronize files between directories, or mount a shared directory to both container and your home directory, or use SELinux to grant access to a selected directory only. Chose your own compromise.
- CorrectHorseBat 5y agoBut it doesn't have to be such a shitty compromise. Most desktop applications could be made such that you have all the security and the convenience.
- drran 5y agoSeparate user for untrusted apps is the proven way to do that in UNIX. :-/
- CorrectHorseBat 5y agoThat can happen under the hood, but the user should not have to deal with that
- user-the-name 5y agoThat is nowhere near practical.
- drran 5y agoAll system daemons are running this way. It's the standard way to isolate networking services on UNIX.
- drran 5y agoYou can run each program in full screen on a separate instance of Xephyr or Xnest, so the program will have a whole separate X server to play with in isolation. Good for running Raspberry Pi desktop via `ssh -X` or `ssh -Y`.
- periheli0n 5y agoWell, there is AppArmor and SELinux which AFAIU could fence in individual apps. It's just not exactly trivial to set up without breaking the app.
- drran 5y agoLinux distributions are FOSS. They provide as much protection as I need. I can run untrusted applications in a container, if I WANT that level of protection. For FOSS software, I don't want it.
- jjav 5y agoThe standard (and ubiquitous) way on UNIX/Linux is to run each program as a different dedicated user. Complete separation.
- boring_twenties 5y agoEven if you do that, they all connect to the same X server. There's the X11 security extension, which offers the concept of "untrusted" clients, but many programs won't work with it. For example, Firefox segfaults regularly if run as an untrusted client.