Omer Zak wrote:

> Great work!  Even if we are not happy with the implications of your
> findings.

I'm glad you finally acknowledge the problem exists in the ultra
secure Unix environments aswell. :) As I said, the problem is with
the developers, too.

> I use Evolution in the Gnome desktop.  Evolution presumably has a
> similar hole, as well, because it allows the user to view an attachment
> using software chosen according to the attachment's MIME type.

Yes, that's a common feature. Many users like that, and it gives
a more familiar feel...

> Now:  what technical changes can be done to make KMail, Evolution and
> other E-mail software running under Linux and *BSD more secure, besides
> complete removal of this feature?

That's an interesting question and is where I focus most of my work
for the last 5 years. :) There are many ways to do this - it all depends
on the nature of the machine.

One thing many admins liked in Stephanie is TPE that just prevented
users from executing code (binaries/scripts) from untrusted locations.
Another way of doing this is what I'm now implementing in NetBSD, called
Verified Exec. This is a rather cool concept that I'm probably going to
lecture about in Haifux (and hopefully TAUSEC, I think it's more
appropriate there..) and some other developers brain-stormed some very
cool new features for it - some take security in open-source OSs a step
forward.

There are of course many other solutions to various other problems; the
problem you state above is (ugh!) a feature that needs very careful
handling.

This is all off-topic here, though...

-e.

-- 
Elad Efrat
PGP Key ID: 0x666EB914


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