Live data from Hacker News

Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

0xcc.io

161–170 of 583 posts

Re: Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

#161
post #145

I've already stated this on the last Omarchy thread, the way DHH is implementing it is highly irresponsible and insecure. Half of his "distro" are essentially shell scripts where it's extremely easy to create accidental security holes. Considering that probably half of his code would need something like setuid/execute bits set in order to avoid configuration spaghetti, I'd imagine that there are _hundreds_ of vulnera…

He did not code his own desktop environment, it’s just hyprland.

Re: Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

#162

A few days ago someone found they were flowing USB descriptors straight into the shell. https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/commit/9285b19d6a72eba3df8... Don't use vibecoded distros. It doesn't matter whether they fix this or that, or whether you care about a particular vuln. This is not sensible. It's why you switched away from Windows in the first place, remember?

"Someone" didn't find that, AI found it. So it's not clear what your point is about vibe coding. Would humans have noticed this problem, especially given that it's not remotely exploitable? (you have to plug in a malicious USB device).

[deleted]

Re: Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

#163

Linux isn't like macOS, it doesn't have any kind of proper desktop sandboxing architecture that really works. So this is kind of security theatre. If you run a malicious program it can do stuff like tamper with your PATH or exploit local vulns in apps to get to the point where it can control anything that matters (which root generally doesn't). For instance it can just drop a custom shell into ~/.bin/.hidden-shell an…

Its opposite. Windows and MacOS lacks proper sandboxing. While openbsd has pinsyscalls and linux has seccomp-bpf. Windows and MacOS only have filesystem and worse version of user namespace sandboxes, anything else and you need to write a kernel extension or rely on a hypervisor.

> Unfortunately implementing an Apple style architecture on Linux would be very difficult.

The apple apps kind of thing already exists and its called flatpak.

Re: Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

#164
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Linux isn't like macOS, it doesn't have any kind of proper desktop sandboxing architecture that really works. I’m sorry, what? MacOS’s desktop sandboxing is pathetic . Sure, it kind of sort of tries to prevent an application from rummaging until you give it permission. And that permission is hilariously coarse grained, and it gets regularly broken anyway. (Seriously, read about TCC breaks. They’re not little implem…

There can be exploits in any security system but the architecture is sound. There's no equivalent of TCC on Linux (I mean one that really sticks), and no easy way to create one. The sandboxing isn't bad. It's obviously weaker if you do everything in the Terminal and stay in old-school UNIX territory because it wasn't designed to sandbox developer workloads. But it's a lot better than nothing, which is what Linux offe…

Mac users always like to defend some of the things Apple legitimately got right over most Linux distros, but always ignore that supply chain security and standard package management security on Apple (Homebrew) is akin to giving a bunch of internet randos root access to your machine with no oversight, vetting, or code review of any kind. At least most Linux distros do basic package signing.

Someone even thinking it is reasonable to try to use a mac to manage production would be grounds for me to ensure they never have production access.

Also, QubesOS is a thing, therefore QubesOS Linux users have way way better access to sandboxing than MacOS -and- signed devtools packages.

Re: Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

#165
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why doesn't Ubuntu fit the bill? You can even install hombrew on it. Everything works like a mac with no fuss. Also the only reason I left Linux was due to hardware. Ubuntu was convenient enough.

There's no reason to use homebrew on Linux. Your package manager is better in every respect.

Just don't.

Re: Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

#166
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Linux isn't like macOS, it doesn't have any kind of proper desktop sandboxing architecture that really works. I’m sorry, what? MacOS’s desktop sandboxing is pathetic . Sure, it kind of sort of tries to prevent an application from rummaging until you give it permission. And that permission is hilariously coarse grained, and it gets regularly broken anyway. (Seriously, read about TCC breaks. They’re not little implem…

There can be exploits in any security system but the architecture is sound. There's no equivalent of TCC on Linux (I mean one that really sticks), and no easy way to create one. The sandboxing isn't bad. It's obviously weaker if you do everything in the Terminal and stay in old-school UNIX territory because it wasn't designed to sandbox developer workloads. But it's a lot better than nothing, which is what Linux offe…

> The OS does actually protect you when it asks if the terminal should be able to access ~/Documents. You can say no, and then random stuff you curl|bash can't read files in that folder unless there's an exploit.

If you say no, you can’t use less or cat to read your documents. If you say yes then you are completely unprotected, forever, from anything you might run from the terminal.

> It also needs pervasive kernel enforced app identity

Doing like MacOS needs app identity. But this model is just wrong, because it answers the wrong question. Determining, once, whether Microsoft Word or VSCode may access all your documents, means that any Word document, using valid scripting or an exploit against Word, may access all your documents, and it means that you are fully exposed to anything you look at in vscode (as vscode has almost no security).

The right questions would be: May this document access this file or folder? May this project access anything outside its own folder? May this Python script read your screen? May this AI agent session access this USB device? Kernel-managed app identity is completely unhelpful for any of this.

(Frankly, kernel managed app identity seems unnecessary for most of what Mac does, too. App identity could be set by whatever launches the app, so long as the app’s resulting privileges are not allowed to exceed those of the launcher.)

> And it will suffer from a high degree of centralization where distributors have to approve every app

Please elaborate.

Sure, if you actually think that an Apple-like entitlement system protects you well, then I guess that a non-Apple entitlement system would need some trusted authority to grant entitlements. I do not think it protects anyone very well even if Apple, as the entitlement granter, is considered fully trustworthy.

Re: Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

#168

A few days ago someone found they were flowing USB descriptors straight into the shell. https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/commit/9285b19d6a72eba3df8... Don't use vibecoded distros. It doesn't matter whether they fix this or that, or whether you care about a particular vuln. This is not sensible. It's why you switched away from Windows in the first place, remember?

Other than hype, what's the appeal here? I saw a couple video demos recently, and was horrified that it seemed one had to memorize a dozen key binding shortcuts to really use it. Is that rather common now? I'm just a Gnome pleb who prefers discoverability via UI.

Being hyprland keybinding skilled removes a lot of the desktop interaction surface, it's a worthwhile investment. People who've used tiling window managers for a while will tell you that it gets natural at a point, then a whole class of friction that normal WMs cause just goes away.

Re: Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than hype, what's the appeal here? I saw a couple video demos recently, and was horrified that it seemed one had to memorize a dozen key binding shortcuts to really use it. Is that rather common now? I'm just a Gnome pleb who prefers discoverability via UI.

That is the appeal. It's an opinionated distro designed around keyboard navigation.

It is kind of nuts how little attention this more-than-controversial-enough aspect of it gets compared to anything else, to the point people don’t even know this about it.

I happen to hate Omarchy for the precise reason I don’t want that sort of interface, but apparently everyone else does, and if they do that’s up to them.

Re: Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root

#170

A few days ago someone found they were flowing USB descriptors straight into the shell. https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/commit/9285b19d6a72eba3df8... Don't use vibecoded distros. It doesn't matter whether they fix this or that, or whether you care about a particular vuln. This is not sensible. It's why you switched away from Windows in the first place, remember?

But, this “vulnerability” is the thing everybody knows about docker since forever. I always make my user part of the docker group, so my NixOS also has this, and any Ubuntu I’ve used over the past year. What is different here? Start a docker container with the docker socket mounted in the container and now you can have yourself mount / as rw. Everybody knows this. How is everybody so shocked here. Many instructions o…

[flagged]
Post reply on HN