Is this secure against Spectre/Meltdown?
Here's a link to Qubes' security tracker with the updated details about it: https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-secpack/blob/master/QSBs/qs...
Qubes OS 4.0 has been released
31–40 of 41 posts
Re: Qubes OS 4.0 has been released
#32Please keep in mind when using Qube OS is that it does NOT protect you if your hardware is compromised. The NSA and other clandestine agencies have an easy backdoor to your computer even when running this.
I never understood objections like this.
With a standard Linux system you have vulnerabilities X,Y,Z. With Qubes you have vulnerability X, so let's comment on Qubes and try to discourage people from using it because vulnerability X still exists? It's still better than the alternative!
Re: Qubes OS 4.0 has been released
#33How is the GPU pass-through support in this release? I'd love to use Qubes but I sometimes want to use my GPU for games or other OpenGL stuff. Is this already working good or is it still a bit bumpy?
I sometimes use 3d CAD software to design parts for 3D printing. Lack of 3d acceleration is one of the major hurdles keeping me away from Qubes, although I have used it and the bits that work well work extremely well. It's a very promising project.
Re: Qubes OS 4.0 has been released
#34Would be happy to use Qubes if I could also get a certified laptop to run it on. Even after months their hardware requirements page still says "Unfortunately, there are currently no certified laptops for Qubes R3.x or R4.x. This page will be updated once certified laptops are available." Anyone have any insider ETA or recommendations? Prefer a practical/reliable laptop over some expensive racehorse. What laptop does…
Snowden: "I’ll just namecheck Qubes here, just because it’s interesting. I’m really excited about Qubes because the idea of VM-separating machines, requiring expensive, costly sandbox escapes to get persistence on a machine, is a big step up in terms of burdening the attacker with greater resource and sophistication requirements for maintaining a compromise. I’d love to see them continue this project. I’d love to see them make it more accessible and much more secure. [You can read more about how to use Qubes here and here.]
Something that we haven’t seen that we need to see is a greater hardening of the overall kernels of every operating system through things like grsecurity [a set of patches to improve Linux security], but unfortunately there’s a big usability gap between the capabilities that are out there, that are possible, and what is attainable for the average user."
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/12/edward-snowden-explains-...
Re: Qubes OS 4.0 has been released
#35Please keep in mind when using Qube OS is that it does NOT protect you if your hardware is compromised. The NSA and other clandestine agencies have an easy backdoor to your computer even when running this.
I never understood objections like this. With a standard Linux system you have vulnerabilities X,Y,Z. With Qubes you have vulnerability X, so let's comment on Qubes and try to discourage people from using it because vulnerability X still exists? It's still better than the alternative!
I didn’t read that as discouraging people from using Qubes, but rather as a reminder than Qubes, like every OS, can’t protect you if your hardware is compromised.
Re: Qubes OS 4.0 has been released
#36How is the GPU pass-through support in this release? I'd love to use Qubes but I sometimes want to use my GPU for games or other OpenGL stuff. Is this already working good or is it still a bit bumpy?
I sometimes use 3d CAD software to design parts for 3D printing. Lack of 3d acceleration is one of the major hurdles keeping me away from Qubes, although I have used it and the bits that work well work extremely well. It's a very promising project.
Yeah, I agree it's a very interesting and promising project.
Hopefully this will be improved and then I would definitely make this my daily OS.
Re: Qubes OS 4.0 has been released
#37How is the GPU pass-through support in this release? I'd love to use Qubes but I sometimes want to use my GPU for games or other OpenGL stuff. Is this already working good or is it still a bit bumpy?
GPU pass-through support should be as good as any other distro on Linux 4.14. You'd need two GPU's still though. If you're talking just general GPU performance in a VM, that's still not 100%, though Qubes is not involved in that work as far as I know.
Re: Qubes OS 4.0 has been released
#38Re: Qubes OS 4.0 has been released
#39Houra ! Such a great work... I love the USB applet (at top right once logged in).
Just plug your device and mount it into one of your VM. Really user friendly :-)
Re: Qubes OS 4.0 has been released
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never understood objections like this. With a standard Linux system you have vulnerabilities X,Y,Z. With Qubes you have vulnerability X, so let's comment on Qubes and try to discourage people from using it because vulnerability X still exists? It's still better than the alternative!
I didn’t read that as discouraging people from using Qubes, but rather as a reminder than Qubes, like every OS, can’t protect you if your hardware is compromised.
That's a trivial conclusion and not related to Qubes OS. Every operating system somehow relies on hardware protection features.
If the ring architecture of processor can be circumvented, the protection of privileged code (kernel) is harmed. If you can circumvent the MMU's memory protection, the protection of privileged code is harmed. And if side channel attacks like Spectre and Meltdown are circumventing protecting features, the protection of sensitive data is harmed.
Every systems which has claims on security relies on explicit (that would be better) or implicit assumptions. And every operating systems I know of, at least implicitly assumes that the hardware isn't compromised.