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Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

trifectatech.org

191–200 of 282 posts

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#191
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's about your misinterpretation of what fossuser meant when they said "religious element". My point, where is the proof of that "religious element" beyond memes? Is it in the article? Is it in the links? Where can we see this religious fervor in action? The article is very matter of fact. I expect people to be matter of fact as well. I swear to God, I feel like I'm asking for the Individualist Eleven book, and ev…

> My point, where is the proof of that "religious element" beyond memes? Is it in the article? Is it in the links? Where can we see this religious fervor in action? You can argue with fossuser about the validity of what they said. I'll offer my opinion , which is not some proof from god or anything that you seem to be seeking, which is that I find significantly more annoying comments from Rust users, about how someth…

> which is not some proof from god or anything that you seem to be seeking

You know what, you or anyone else can start with actual proofs. I don't want your lived experience and memes as proof, I need messages, posts from people (bonus points for sudo-rs members) that show how zealous they are about Rust and rewriting all the things in it.

I'm a Java dev, that just dabbles in Rust. I've seen observed many claims about Rust zealotry with no actual proof. Whenever I ask for them, I get a blank stare and dodging.

Hence, my comparison with the book from Ghost in the Shell. It, too, was a meme, an actual memory virus. Everyone read it, and no one could find the proof it existed.

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#192
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sudo-rs doesn’t gratuitously require a root privilege daemon that regularly ships filesystem destruction and remote unauthenticated arbitrary code execution bugs. If your bar is “I’ll tolerate such crap”, you may as well run your desktop session as root.

If sudo does this, as you imply, why do Linux system still exist that are not part of a botnet?

Implication is that systemd does this, not sudo.

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#193
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can realistically enforce a security boundary between root, and a user account that occasionally elevates. You can enforce a boundary between root and an account that never elevates though. And as far as I understand hardening sudo helps with that.

Why not? The way Windows does it should work in theory I think? Maybe you can't realistically do it on Linux , because Linux doesn't care about desktop security and doesn't have the kind of privileged GUI that you need.

Windows is a bit different I suppose. Many pieces come together to make it kinda work there.

* Privileged gui to display and approve what will run as you mentioned. In Linux, non-privileged gui is used to request permission to do... something.

* Executable verification. Let's say someone with user level permissions swaps out the program you wanted to run for a malicious one. The replacement would not pass certificate checks which would be revealed in the privileged gui. Maybe you could supply an old version with known vulnerabilities though idk?

* Kinda commandline parameters verification. In Linux-land you can pass parameters to the program those could be intercepted with user-level permissions. In Windows this would be displayed in the privileged gui. However! The parameters are only visible if you click "show more" which I would guess As an example of the last point I tested making a shortcut to cmd.exe and used Run As Administrator. Then I changed the shortcut to C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c calc and again did Run As Administrator. Opens calculator instead of command prompt with identical approval gui (except with show more).

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#194
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would just elevate each regular account to be a root account. There is no other way to make things like modifying files directly under / possible, or to change system configurations. You can lock everything down instead, then you have Android, but then you have certainly not enabled everything a user can do with sudo.

>There is no other way to make things like modifying files directly under / possible It doesn't need to be possible. >change system configurations You can have an settings app to configure the system. >then you have Android Which is much farther ahead than Ubuntu on security. Ubuntu needs to play catch up. >but then you have certainly not enabled everything a user can do with sudo. The goal is not to be able to do ev…

> The average user doesn't need to be able to do anything.

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#195
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not particularly. Some of this stuff started under the last Trump administration as well. We'll see.

It's all sides of government. Edit: all links now fixed. ____ (generated, but with references) # U.S. government guidance on memory-safe languages Here's the list of links to U.S. government documents recommending memory-safe programming languages for cybersecurity. 1. *White House ONCD - "Back to the Building Blocks" (Feb 2024)* - Encourages developers to use memory-safe languages like Rust, Python, Java, C#, Go, Sw…

What your parent is referring to is that three of those links now 404. Some of that is simply because whitehouse.gov gets redone with new administrations, and so old stuff is thrown out. They're also referring to how the Trump admin is talking about seriously reducing CISA's budget. Things like that.

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#196
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ubuntu continuously updates itself without permission, killing apps and losing previous state. What? Is this some snap thing because apt sure as hell doesn't do this without you configuring it explicitly.

apt won't on its own, but if you're using the official images there's probably a service running that's calling it, probably for security patches etc. The bigger problem is upgrading packages deliberately but being surprised by the results. My team's current favorite is the upgrade process itself suddenly having new interactive prompts breaking our scripts.

I thought DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive was supposed to avoid that?

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty sure it is around here somewhere: https://github.com/trifectatechfoundation/sudo-rs/issues . I apologize, I do not bookmark these issues, but maybe I should start doing that? In any case, you will find logic bugs which may raise the question "is it really worth the rewrite?".

You have the burden of proof to substantiate your accusations. Until then they're entirely unfounded.

Aren't full rewrites pretty much universally considered harmful?

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#198
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was Ubuntu user until they've introduced snap and started forcing it down everybody's throat. No more Ubuntu for me.

For me it was their begging for money on install.

Would you prefer the Microsoft way of begging for money before install?

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That would mean it's only using the same kernel as the Linux operating system? There's no "Linux operating system". Linux is the name of the kernel. Android is an operating system, GNU/Linux is, things like BusyBox/Linux are. They're all operating systems that use the Linux kernel.

Linux is a perfectly good operating system. If you're motivated enough, you can boot Linux straight into your software without any other dependencies at all. Linux operates the system just fine all by itself. There's this weird definition of "operating system" which means "some sort of platform with a shell and little commands like cp, ls, etc.". That's just what POSIX tells people an operating system is, not the ult…

You kinda blew my mind just now. I never considered an operating system as a collection of packages before (conceptually speaking).

Re: Memory-safe sudo to become the default in Ubuntu

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an example of the logic bugs you're referring to?

I am pretty sure it is around here somewhere: https://github.com/trifectatechfoundation/sudo-rs/issues . I apologize, I do not bookmark these issues, but maybe I should start doing that? In any case, you will find logic bugs which may raise the question "is it really worth the rewrite?".

A more interesting link is https://github.com/trifectatechfoundation/sudo-rs/issues?q=l... IMO. Glancing down that list, a lot of them aren't what I would personally view as major problems (ex. "rustup is inappropriate for security critical software" - maybe it is, but that's not a specific exploitable bug), but I would suggest https://github.com/trifectatechfoundation/sudo-rs/issues/575 as a potentially interesting looking example.

> I apologize, I do not bookmark these issues, but maybe I should start doing that?

Yes. If you want to point out problems, it really helps if you can point at specifics.

> In any case, you will find logic bugs which may raise the question "is it really worth the rewrite?".

There's a cost/benefit question, but note that the mere presence of some bugs doesn't make a rewrite worthless.

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