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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Just read Madaidans Insecurities. Do you know how much is still relevant? (www.madaidans-insecurities.github.io)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Basically

Sandboxing is bad, bubblewrap (used in Flatpak) is a really good implementation though. Firefox and other apps are not very well sandboxed though
The kernel is endangered through user namespaces (used in Flatpak and Podman/Docker containers i.e. in Distrobox and Toolbox too)
the root password can be extracted veeery easily, especially when entering it through a terminal. Windows "okay" button might actually be more secure!
X11 is insecure, okay we know that
the kernel is very bloated and everything in there has all the permissions, which is not needed
Kernel bugs are often not fixed quickly or at all
Stable Distros are insecure if only CVE bugs are backported, as many security bugs dont get a CVE

I am currently experimenting with the hardened Kernel and hardened_malloc, I use GrapheneOS since over a year.

On Linux its a bit more difficult though, as Flatpak and Distrobox dont work anymore.

This would mean user namespaces need to be enabled again, which I can't seem to make work with

sudo sysctl -w kernel.unprivileged_users_clone=1

But the file doesnt exist and creating it doesnt work, probably needs to be a karg or something?

I am testing all this using the hardened mod of Ublue (a slight Fedora deviation using its image-based distribution model):

https://github.com/qoijjj/hardened-images

The images are rather opinionated though and have things like Flatpak removed, making them nearly unusable.

Maybe nix is a solution? Would this be a good idea?

Another point, bubblejail is not yet in the Fedora repos, which would be a way to make secure sandboxing accessible. Here is a spec file from rusty-snake.

What do you know about this?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Some stuff related to madaidan I wrote and compiled a couple years ago.

https://i.imgur.com/FiYhbkk.jpg: madaidan being very 4chan-y in terms of blaming the computer language for problems in particular software code (in this case Linux kernel), while dismissing everything when it comes to Windows. His blog page about Linux is a massive piece of "toilet paper" repeatedly debunked at this point. If you think the phrase "toilet paper" is mine, come, have a look.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210929053611/https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/pwi1l9/thoughts_about_an_article_talking_about_the/

https://web.archive.org/web/20220111035527/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25590079

https://archive.is/zxS72

TL;DR his blog has been dismissed enough at this point to consider it nothing more than digital rag. Security zealots are dangerous to FOSS community, like Brad Spengler/grsecurity, madaidan, GrapheneOS and so on. You can identify them as Big Tech security evangelists trying to shit on FOSS with arguments I would say do not end up being very intelligent and academic, and more reactionary and flakey.

Also a little note on security. You do not need as much security as much as you need privacy, freedom and anonymity. Security is variable, it only buys you the time against attacker, and is the least priority among these 4 things in computing.