It seems to me that a secure OS would be an OS I wouldn't care to use. It would be so locked down that I couldn't really tinker with it.
When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)
11–20 of 102 posts
Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)
#12Earlier 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,…
> I'm not sure whether you are aware that the way you described it, it actually is in reality. Note that I'm not talking about industrialised production, but about people selling their fruits at the side of a road, who may not even be farmers but just have a large garden ; we had only 3/4 fruit trees when growing up but it'd often make enough to give kilograms of apricots & such can be given away or sold for a few eu…
I think Apple (Computers) can't be compared with organic food because Apple's business and operations model implies that everything is protected intellectually with patents.
Protecting your manufacturing process via patents implies that "people at the side of the road" don't know how to make it. Otherwise the patent would be nullified.
To stay with the metaphor I think we'd have to classify Apple (Computers) as a processed food manufacturer and not the same was as organic food, and also not as something that other people can easily grow themselves in their backyard.
That would be probably something like a USB cable or maybe a touchpad or something, but even that far outreaches the knowledge of the general population that are not specialized in the area. Planting a seed and taking care of a plant to grow it, is pretty much doable by a child in comparison.
Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)
#13This reads like fearmongering paranoia-propaganda for driving people towards the authoritarian centralised walled gardens...
The problem is once you give an app perission then you never know when it's turning on the mic or the camera.
The microphone and camera are unplugged when not in use.
"secure"? No thanks, I'd rather sacrifice some security and keep my freedom. We're already losing the war against general-purpose computing.
Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm not sure whether you are aware that the way you described it, it actually is in reality. Note that I'm not talking about industrialised production, but about people selling their fruits at the side of a road, who may not even be farmers but just have a large garden ; we had only 3/4 fruit trees when growing up but it'd often make enough to give kilograms of apricots & such can be given away or sold for a few eu…
I think Apple (Computers) can't be compared with organic food because Apple's business and operations model implies that everything is protected intellectually with patents. Protecting your manufacturing process via patents implies that "people at the side of the road" don't know how to make it. Otherwise the patent would be nullified. To stay with the metaphor I think we'd have to classify Apple (Computers) as a pro…
I'm sorry, why are you talking about Apple ? The posted article is about every desktop OS, that includes for instance Linux or hobbyist OSes
Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)
#15I 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 your random proprietary programs are doing
Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)
#16This reads like fearmongering paranoia-propaganda for driving people towards the authoritarian centralised walled gardens... The problem is once you give an app perission then you never know when it's turning on the mic or the camera. The microphone and camera are unplugged when not in use. "secure"? No thanks, I'd rather sacrifice some security and keep my freedom. We're already losing the war against general-purpos…
What about snaps on Ubuntu? https://www.howtogeek.com/670084/what-you-need-to-know-about...
Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)
#17This article is from 2018. Many of the points made in this post have since been addressed by macOS, and continue to be addressed. In fact, some of the issues the author complains about were addressed by the macOS in 2018.
Making it an OS more hated by the day.
I really like the way macOS is getting more secure.
It just seems like good engineering if nothing else - why do applications get to access devices by default?
Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)
#18While I agree with this article, it's interesting to note that by far the most spying occurs on mobile phones, which are very sandboxed. Maybe because that's where the money is.
To be fair, we don't have the other kinds of exploits on phones, like ransomware, so it does show that sandboxing mitigates many risks.
Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)
#19We're still a few years away, Genode and Fuchsia are currently my odds on favorites to deliver a system based on capabilities. (Not the limited kind used in cell phones, the real ones, with granularity down to the single resource handle)
Such a system can be just as easy to use, but secure in enforcing the will of the user.
Re: When will we get secure desktop OSes? (2018)
#20This reads like fearmongering paranoia-propaganda for driving people towards the authoritarian centralised walled gardens... The problem is once you give an app perission then you never know when it's turning on the mic or the camera. The microphone and camera are unplugged when not in use. "secure"? No thanks, I'd rather sacrifice some security and keep my freedom. We're already losing the war against general-purpos…
> The microphone and camera are unplugged when not in use.
I guess you don't use any laptops than.
> I'd rather sacrifice some security and keep my freedom. We're already losing the war against general-purpose computing.
That's a false dichotomy. As a user you can give all the permissions you want to a sandboxed app you want to use. The only one losing freedom is the potential malware writer.
If you are true to this sentiment, I guess you run everything under the root/admin account of the computer, because that gives you maximum freedom, right? A non-root user is a sandboxed user.