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When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)

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Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)

#31

Post by elric »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #24

I think the reality is that the average HN reader/developer and the general public want/need a device with requirements that are very far from each other and are very hard to integrate. A chrome book like device that gets wiped every time it's started and downloads a clean OS so the user can browse the web, play games, and edit (remotely housed) documents would suit 90%+ of the world. Perhaps developers should be usi…

Sure, it would suit 90% of the world, but at what cost? It would further turn computers & the internet into a passive medium, one meant to be consumed. It might have some short term security benefits for users, but in the long term, that's going to lead to even less tech literacy, ultimately only benefiting FAANG.

Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)

#32

Post by yeahforsureman »

foepys wrote: post #10
cookiengineer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only way would be to entirely control food production from the very start in an industrialised and verified way, no ? I'm not sure whether you are aware that the way you described it, it actually is in reality. So the sarcastic approach is a little misplaced here. There are literally institutions that random select tests of food products to ensure their quality. If it's off or outside law regulated guidelines,…

For an example see this article, worth reading: https://www.grubstreet.com/2020/12/2020-bucatini-shortage-in... The sequel: https://www.grubstreet.com/2021/02/de-cecco-bucatini-shortag...

I would not recommend this article if you can't handle a load of New York pasta nerdiness before getting to the SAUCE, capisci?

Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)

#33

Post by sureglymop »

gentleman11 wrote: post #15

I don't understand the responses in this thread. Does nobody want an OS with a permissions system where you can reliably control access to resources? Or strong app sandboxing by default to keep chrome from sniffing your files (allegedly, this is virus scanning)? There isn't any loss of freedom with those as long as your super user can modify it all - its a gain of freedom in that you can have some control over what y…

I think that's what we need. An app with a "firewall" for every security or privacy critical operation that prompts the user when it has to. We can have that for the browser with e.g. uMatrix or uBlock origin and other extensions, or LittleSnitch on MacOS but it should be handled at the system (call) (kernel?) level I guess. The user can then set up the rules he wants to so he doesn't always get prompted.

And for non technical users there have to be sensible defaults already in place. An example of not so sensible defaults are the default permissions of many flatpak apps.

And for privacy we need granular control, like on Android with something like XPrivacyLua. But it does pose some challenges, for example it makes it easy to just spoof your location and so on for an app. Personally I do think that the user has the right to do that though.

Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)

#34

Post by ivolimmen »

michaelt wrote: post #28
edu-ap wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about snaps on Ubuntu? https://www.howtogeek.com/670084/what-you-need-to-know-about...

But everyone hates snaps. Huge files (made worse by an insistence on keeping two versions of everything around). Slow to start even a simple calculator. Fills the mount list with spam. All to deliver the "feature" that Discord can't share a file from ~/.minecraft/screenshots/whatever.png and ffmpeg can't access /dev/video0 Users prefer dpkg so clearly that Canonical had to make a fake dpkg file for Chromium that inst…

From a user perspective : it does work. I always had issues running Spotify on it if I ran a newer Ubuntu than Spotify built their application for. Now I run the snap and everything just works.

Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)

#35

Post by dsr_ »

gentleman11 wrote: post #15

I don't understand the responses in this thread. Does nobody want an OS with a permissions system where you can reliably control access to resources? Or strong app sandboxing by default to keep chrome from sniffing your files (allegedly, this is virus scanning)? There isn't any loss of freedom with those as long as your super user can modify it all - its a gain of freedom in that you can have some control over what y…

No, most people don't want that.

The average HN reader does. If your business plan can thrive with 95% of your customers being developers, sysadmins, geeks, nerds, academics, people who remember what the first and second derivatives of space with regard to time mean, and the people who are associated with them... sure, go ahead. But we already are almost there with macos and chromeos and linux. We just need one more layer:

root can allow and rescind privs to

users who can allow and rescind privs to

applications

but the fact of the matter is, right now people not in the categories above do not like the tradeoff of thinking about permissions in exchange for more control. Microsoft and Apple could force it on them, but as soon as a convenience feature of "never think about this decision again" shows up, users will click on that and never think about it at all. Some people will click on things because they were promised a game, or porn, or wallpaper images of kittens.

Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)

#36

Post by tonyedgecombe »

klodolph wrote: post #8
jcelerier wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making it an OS more hated by the day.

I mean, that’s actually a fair observation, at least on HN. A lot of people on HN do complain about the changes. There’s a tradeoff between security and convenience. Making something more secure is, essentially, making it harder to use for undesired use cases. The side effect is inevitably that it also makes it harder to use for legitimate use cases.

I have a suspicion that the most vocal complainers don't even use it.

Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)

#38

Post by foxpurple »

michaelt wrote: post #22

If you want to get there, I wouldn't start from here. The problem is, from the status quo we have today it's hard to see how we'd get to a point of security without sacrificing general purpose computing. After all, it's either possible for the user to promote an application to equal the power of the OS, or it isn't. Oh, sure, you could make it mandatory to ask permission before getting that power. But many security p…

There are different methods of security, one where you assume the user is trusted but that the programs are not and one where you assume the user and the programs are not trusted.

iOS is the second version. Linux with flatpak and SELinux is the first one. It is certainly possible to secure Linux a lot while still allowing the user to tweak whatever they want. There is a tool called flatseal which lets you adjust the sandbox settings for any Flatpak.

Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)

#40

Post by jazzyjackson »

elric wrote: post #31
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #24

I think the reality is that the average HN reader/developer and the general public want/need a device with requirements that are very far from each other and are very hard to integrate. A chrome book like device that gets wiped every time it's started and downloads a clean OS so the user can browse the web, play games, and edit (remotely housed) documents would suit 90%+ of the world. Perhaps developers should be usi…

Sure, it would suit 90% of the world, but at what cost? It would further turn computers & the internet into a passive medium, one meant to be consumed. It might have some short term security benefits for users, but in the long term, that's going to lead to even less tech literacy, ultimately only benefiting FAANG.

I don’t see that as strictly necessary. You don’t need root access or gcc to be a creator - think of geocities: that was always someone else’s computer and would be perfectly compatible with the most locked down chromebook
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