Hello,

Currently on the Wayland ML, a bunch of devs are discussing security issues 
[0,1] and the need to restrict userland processes' privileges to e.g., take 
screenshots, act as virtual keyboards or read keyboard events for other apps, 
etc (basically introducing privileged interfaces that require explicit user 
authorisation). We've also been discussing how the introduction of Wayland 
allows for redesigning and securing authentication and authorisation UIs.

This has led me to question the way authorisation and authentication are 
currently done, and to write a couple of proposed requirements for both tasks. 
I'd be very keen on hearing the opinions of polkit developers on a blog post 
I've written [2], that focuses a lot on the infrastructure needs (both in 
Wayland and desktop environments), that I think has a lot of relevance to 
polkit. I'd also like to debate UX aspects of authorisation (which are less 
detailled in that blog) and see if the polkit project has any interest in 
advocating implementation guidelines on authorisation/authentication agents, 
based on usable security research. I'm not sure if this ML is the best place 
for such a discussion but if it is, I'd be very happy to hear about your 
opinions.

Thanks,

[0] 
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/wayland-devel/2014-February/013359.html
[1] http://mupuf.org/blog/2014/02/19/wayland-compositors-why-and-how-to-handle/
[2] http://mupuf.org/blog/2014/03/18/managing-auth-ui-in-linux/
--
Steve Dodier-Lazaro
PhD student in Information Security
University College London
Dept. of Computer Science
Malet Place Engineering, 6.07
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT
OpenPGP : 1B6B1670
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