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If you have malware running with your user permissions, your entire browser can be swapped out with a hacked version that keylogs you. The entire GNU/Linux de

If you have malware running with your user permissions, your entire browser can be swapped out with a hacked version that keylogs you. The entire GNU/Linux desktop security model falls to pieces the moment you have malware running with your user permissions, there's a sword of Damocles hanging above you by a meter long thread of silk and Wayland proposes to replace one centimeter of that string with a steel cable. Great, 99 cm of that string is still silk thread so nothing has changed. Anyway to echo beanjuiceII's point, number of times I've been pwned by an X keylogger: Zero.

Volundr 3y ago
> number of times I've been pwned by an X keylogger: Zero. (That you know of). Number of times I've been pwned by any technical vector (that I know of): zero. The fact it hasn't happened to you does not imply that defending against it is pointless. Early in my computing career I used the same weak password for everything. Never had an account takeover. That does not imply that using different secure passwords for each site is pointless.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  > (That you know of). The number of ways I might have been pwned and not known about it is basically infinite. Why should I prioritize replacing X11 over any other hypothetical threat for which I have no evidence that I'm at particular risk of? Nobody has photographed my house keys and made copies that I know of. Should I re-key all my locks just to be extra safe? I could replace my front door with an armored door too.. but a burglar would just come in through a window instead so what would be the point? There's no point armoring your front door unless you also put bars on all your windows, and there's no point adopting wayland for security unless you fix all the other security problems with running malicious software on the GNU/Linux desktop too. And miss me with the QubesOS/flatpack/etc suggestions, my days of playing amateur sysadmin are over I just want to use my computer, not tinker with experimental desktop administration.
  - Volundr 3y ago
    I guess we might as well not bother with passwords either or disk encryption either. After all other exploits exist and there's not point protecting against any attack vector unless all are covered. Security comes from many layers, and is a constant and incremental process. "Someone might get in by breaking a window" is not a reason not to install locks on your doors.
phkahler 3y ago
>> If you have malware running with your user permissions, your entire browser can be swapped out with a hacked version that keylogs you. That's not true either. The malware would require privilege escalation to co-opt my browser. Even if you weren't wrong about that, I don't know why you complain about both weak security models AND a very big improvement in Linux security (Wayland). Oh right, on X the malware could just wait for me to type in my password for something I wanted to do and grab it. then it could sudo just like me.
- jowea 3y ago
  > That's not true either. The malware would require privilege escalation to co-opt my browser. Does it? Sure it can't replace /usr/bin/firefox, but what's stopping the malware from writing a fake shortcut to ~/.local/share/applications/malwarefirefox.desktop and waiting until you click the fake shortcut? Or kill the running firefox and start the malware version? Or add some malware extension directly to ~/.mozilla/firefox/profiles? Or something else? Or are you assuming the malware is running in a sandbox like AppArmor?
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    Exactly. A program running as the user can change the user's desktop configuration to launch a hacked browser instead of the browser installed by the system. It can also edit PATH and then wrap sudo and get root access the next time you use it, or fuck with you a thousand other ways.

Volundr 3y ago

> number of times I've been pwned by an X keylogger: Zero. (That you know of). Number of times I've been pwned by any technical vector (that I know of): zero. The fact it hasn't happened to you does not imply that defending against it is pointless. Early in my computing career I used the same weak password for everything. Never had an account takeover. That does not imply that using different secure passwords for each site is pointless.

mcpackieh 3y ago
> (That you know of). The number of ways I might have been pwned and not known about it is basically infinite. Why should I prioritize replacing X11 over any other hypothetical threat for which I have no evidence that I'm at particular risk of? Nobody has photographed my house keys and made copies that I know of. Should I re-key all my locks just to be extra safe? I could replace my front door with an armored door too.. but a burglar would just come in through a window instead so what would be the point? There's no point armoring your front door unless you also put bars on all your windows, and there's no point adopting wayland for security unless you fix all the other security problems with running malicious software on the GNU/Linux desktop too. And miss me with the QubesOS/flatpack/etc suggestions, my days of playing amateur sysadmin are over I just want to use my computer, not tinker with experimental desktop administration.
- Volundr 3y ago
  I guess we might as well not bother with passwords either or disk encryption either. After all other exploits exist and there's not point protecting against any attack vector unless all are covered. Security comes from many layers, and is a constant and incremental process. "Someone might get in by breaking a window" is not a reason not to install locks on your doors.

phkahler 3y ago

>> If you have malware running with your user permissions, your entire browser can be swapped out with a hacked version that keylogs you. That's not true either. The malware would require privilege escalation to co-opt my browser. Even if you weren't wrong about that, I don't know why you complain about both weak security models AND a very big improvement in Linux security (Wayland). Oh right, on X the malware could just wait for me to type in my password for something I wanted to do and grab it. then it could sudo just like me.

jowea 3y ago
> That's not true either. The malware would require privilege escalation to co-opt my browser. Does it? Sure it can't replace /usr/bin/firefox, but what's stopping the malware from writing a fake shortcut to ~/.local/share/applications/malwarefirefox.desktop and waiting until you click the fake shortcut? Or kill the running firefox and start the malware version? Or add some malware extension directly to ~/.mozilla/firefox/profiles? Or something else? Or are you assuming the malware is running in a sandbox like AppArmor?
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  Exactly. A program running as the user can change the user's desktop configuration to launch a hacked browser instead of the browser installed by the system. It can also edit PATH and then wrap sudo and get root access the next time you use it, or fuck with you a thousand other ways.