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> Containers are not designed to be security boundaries. So you'd prefer your graphics system to act as a security boundary? Seems very weird to me. Containe

> Containers are not designed to be security boundaries. So you'd prefer your graphics system to act as a security boundary? Seems very weird to me. Containers are clearly the right tool for this job, for they can run as well for non-graphical programs.

nolist_policy 2y ago
The graphics system absolutely is a part of the security boundary. You can pass through your X11 or Wayland server socket in the container to run graphical applications. This is more of less what a Flatpack is.
PlutoIsAPlanet 2y ago
Yes, the windowing system requires such to prevent applications with less privileges spying or controlling those with more. On X, it is possible for an exploit in a browser to gain root if you have an application opened as root. Although such exploit would be extremely difficult to pull off, state actors will do anything for specific targets.
- kwhitefoot 2y ago
  > state actors will do anything for specific targets. That's either not a problem for me because I am of no interest to them. Or it is a problem that no amount of fiddling with software can mitigate because they can just beat me until I give up. See https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
samus 2y ago
It has to be. The capabilities exposed via the X socket are way too powerful since they allow the application to mess with any other application running on that X server. There are sandboxing solutions which give each applications its own X instance, which is quite similar to the way Wayland isolates applications from each other, and shares the same disadvantages.
- iforgotpassword 2y ago
  Usually people run all their apps unsandboxed anyways, so cool that Wayland prevents me from accessing any other app via its protocol - too bad I can just open any other process's memory via /proc, or read any sensitive data it stored in $HOME. It's been a long time since I daily drove Windows, but I'd assume it's still the same situation over there. I don't care. Sandboxing is annoying, cumbersome. I'm not going to create a container for every single app I run, so Wayland brings zero additional security. If once in a honeymoon I need to run shady software I use a VM.
  - samus 2y ago
    Of course it has to be used with another sandboxing layer to be effective. You don't have to create a container by yourself, a good desktop will do it for you. One such solution is Flatpak. Many applications don't work that great with Flatpak yet and require quite sweeping additional privileges, but we will probably see improvements over time. There's nothing wrong with users deciding to just have a common folder with all their data, but some applications are of more sensitive nature than others and it should be possible to secure them better. For example password managers or terminals.

nolist_policy 2y ago

The graphics system absolutely is a part of the security boundary. You can pass through your X11 or Wayland server socket in the container to run graphical applications. This is more of less what a Flatpack is.

PlutoIsAPlanet 2y ago

Yes, the windowing system requires such to prevent applications with less privileges spying or controlling those with more. On X, it is possible for an exploit in a browser to gain root if you have an application opened as root. Although such exploit would be extremely difficult to pull off, state actors will do anything for specific targets.

kwhitefoot 2y ago
> state actors will do anything for specific targets. That's either not a problem for me because I am of no interest to them. Or it is a problem that no amount of fiddling with software can mitigate because they can just beat me until I give up. See https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/

samus 2y ago

It has to be. The capabilities exposed via the X socket are way too powerful since they allow the application to mess with any other application running on that X server. There are sandboxing solutions which give each applications its own X instance, which is quite similar to the way Wayland isolates applications from each other, and shares the same disadvantages.

iforgotpassword 2y ago
Usually people run all their apps unsandboxed anyways, so cool that Wayland prevents me from accessing any other app via its protocol - too bad I can just open any other process's memory via /proc, or read any sensitive data it stored in $HOME. It's been a long time since I daily drove Windows, but I'd assume it's still the same situation over there. I don't care. Sandboxing is annoying, cumbersome. I'm not going to create a container for every single app I run, so Wayland brings zero additional security. If once in a honeymoon I need to run shady software I use a VM.
- samus 2y ago
  Of course it has to be used with another sandboxing layer to be effective. You don't have to create a container by yourself, a good desktop will do it for you. One such solution is Flatpak. Many applications don't work that great with Flatpak yet and require quite sweeping additional privileges, but we will probably see improvements over time. There's nothing wrong with users deciding to just have a common folder with all their data, but some applications are of more sensitive nature than others and it should be possible to secure them better. For example password managers or terminals.