Re: WAY OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-12-24 Thread Duncan Patton a Campbell
On Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:39:33 +1300
Paul M l...@no-tek.com wrote:

 On 15/12/2009, at 7:10 AM, Bob Beck wrote:
 
  | People are at the core motivated by their own self-interest.  Anyone
  | who says they aren't is selling something.
 
  Yes, they're selling hilarity. It's The Onion, after all.
 
  Yes, but it's funny because it's true.  Even OpenBSD developers are
  motivated by self interest...Ever wonder why the answers on misc@ are
  so taunting or dismissive for people who whine without producing code?
 
 Self interest is probably THE most basic instinct of any creature 
 anywhere
   - it's how the species survives.
 Kids learn, as they grow, to temper it and become more 'human', but it
 remains the root of survival of the species.
 

It's just that the boundaries of self interest expand over time.

Like every other kind of shit it expands to fill the alloted space
+ X% where X is a positive integer.

Dhu

 
 paulm



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-12-18 Thread Lars Nooden
Ted Unangst wrote:
 On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 4:47 PM, Lars Nooden lars.cura...@gmail.com wrote:
 So everything under X should be considered available to everything else
 under X.

 I presume new models for displays, or new ways to get some kind of privilege
 separation for X, have been discussed to death already.  Is there any key
 discussion or publication?
 
 I'm not sure what you're after, but two conceivable starting points
 would be the man pages for xauth and XSelectInput.

Those help.  I'm trying to get an idea, even an abstract one, of how
individual windows could be kept from poaching i/o from each other.

/Lars



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-12-18 Thread Ted Unangst
On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 4:31 PM, Lars Nooden lars.cura...@gmail.com wrote:
 Ted Unangst wrote:
 I'm not sure what you're after, but two conceivable starting points
 would be the man pages for xauth and XSelectInput.

 Those help.  I'm trying to get an idea, even an abstract one, of how
 individual windows could be kept from poaching i/o from each other.

XGrabKeyboard.  There's also a whole section on security in man xterm,
sorry, forgot about it before.

But it's no magic bullet.  Suddenly, your window manager hotkeys stop
working, so you can't really have a default current window grabs
keyboard policy.  Your screensaver also needs to grab the keyboard.
So if your browser only grabs the keyboard while entering a password
field, that essentially means the screen locker will never activate in
that state.  Rare, but totally confusing to users.



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-12-14 Thread Duncan Patton a Campbell
On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:47:38 +0200 (EET)
Lars Nooden lars.cura...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Sat, 12 Dec 2009, Duncan Patton a Campbell wrote:
  On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:51:03 -0800
  Ted Unangst ted.unan...@gmail.com wrote:
  How many people are aware that any X program can listen to the
  keystrokes of any other X program?
 
  Any machine running or accessed by an X-machine is fundamentally 
  insecure to whatever level of perms the accessor has.  Which doesn't 
  mean that I don't use X, just that I assume, a-priori, that anything on 
  X is common-wealth.
 
 So everything under X should be considered available to everything else 
 under X.
 
 I presume new models for displays, or new ways to get some kind of 
 privilege separation for X, have been discussed to death 
 already.  Is there any key discussion or publication?
 

I assume you've been to x.org and are asking me for a qualitative assessment
I'm not qualified to answer;-)  Over the years this issue has re-emerged
in various contexts with various proposals and I don't think any resolution
better than a vetted code base has been agreed.

Dhu

 /Lars



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-12-14 Thread Ted Unangst
On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 4:47 PM, Lars Nooden lars.cura...@gmail.com wrote:
 So everything under X should be considered available to everything else
 under X.

 I presume new models for displays, or new ways to get some kind of
privilege
 separation for X, have been discussed to death already.  Is there any key
 discussion or publication?

I'm not sure what you're after, but two conceivable starting points
would be the man pages for xauth and XSelectInput.



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-12-14 Thread Marc Espie
On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 06:08:30AM -0700, Duncan Patton a Campbell wrote:
 On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:47:38 +0200 (EET)
 Lars Nooden lars.cura...@gmail.com wrote:

  On Sat, 12 Dec 2009, Duncan Patton a Campbell wrote:
   On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:51:03 -0800
   Ted Unangst ted.unan...@gmail.com wrote:
   How many people are aware that any X program can listen to the
   keystrokes of any other X program?

   Any machine running or accessed by an X-machine is fundamentally 
   insecure to whatever level of perms the accessor has.  Which doesn't 
   mean that I don't use X, just that I assume, a-priori, that anything on 
   X is common-wealth.

  So everything under X should be considered available to everything else 
  under X.

  I presume new models for displays, or new ways to get some kind of 
  privilege separation for X, have been discussed to death 
  already.  Is there any key discussion or publication?

 I assume you've been to x.org and are asking me for a qualitative assessment
 I'm not qualified to answer;-)  Over the years this issue has re-emerged
 in various contexts with various proposals and I don't think any resolution
 better than a vetted code base has been agreed.


Considering the design of X, I don't expect any valid security model to emerge
out of it.

If things are insecure, piling more protocols and more concepts on top of it
is unlikely to make things better. The more complicated, the less secure.

Look at recent X evolution. Tell me which way the wind blows ?

The way I read things, they're mostly concerned with getting things faster,
which can often be worthwhile.  And adding more bloat to compete with
Windows applications and eye-candy... that, in some lands, is considered
worthwhile.

From past experience, I would expect much waving of hands over a two
weeks periods, with lots of expert telling you It's a complicated problem,
running around in circle finding even MORE complicated problems to solve,
and then things going back to its general state of apathy with respect
to security issues.



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-12-14 Thread Bob Beck
 From past experience, I would expect much waving of hands over a two
 weeks periods, with lots of expert telling you It's a complicated problem,
 running around in circle finding even MORE complicated problems to solve,
 and then things going back to its general state of apathy with respect
 to security issues.

I don't believe it's apathy, as much as a realization that in general,
the focus of the developers will always be on speed and eye candy to
the expense of all else, including stability and security.

As such we concentrate on looking at things that can mitigate
somewhat, at least in the saner cases, such as when it is not an
accellerated driver with full access to the machine. Then we at least
have some more secure by default options.

The fact is though, Monsterously accellerated X with full access to
the machine hardware bypasseses much of the security protection
openbsd provides.  Do some people want/need it? sure. but they sould
do so understanding that they are incurring a greater risk by using
it. in this manner.



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-12-14 Thread Daniel Ouellet

On 12/14/09 11:43 AM, Bob Beck wrote:

 From past experience, I would expect much waving of hands over a two
weeks periods, with lots of expert telling you It's a complicated problem,
running around in circle finding even MORE complicated problems to solve,
and then things going back to its general state of apathy with respect
to security issues.


I don't believe it's apathy, as much as a realization that in general,
the focus of the developers will always be on speed and eye candy to
the expense of all else, including stability and security.

As such we concentrate on looking at things that can mitigate
somewhat, at least in the saner cases, such as when it is not an
accellerated driver with full access to the machine. Then we at least
have some more secure by default options.

The fact is though, Monsterously accellerated X with full access to
the machine hardware bypasseses much of the security protection
openbsd provides.  Do some people want/need it? sure. but they sould
do so understanding that they are incurring a greater risk by using
it. in this manner.


Well, Bob, this is much like the new study that just came out for kids, 
here replace kids by your favorite X users and X developers that wants 
these goodies.


The conclusion is pretty much the same and can read like:

The Journal Of Child Psychology And Psychiatry has concluded that an 
estimated 98 percent of children under the age of 10 are remorseless 
sociopaths with little regard for anything other than their own 
egocentric interests and pleasures.


http://www.theonion.com/content/news/new_study_reveals_most_children

I just don't think in this case here that it is limited to Children 
only. (;


Peace,

Daniel



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-12-14 Thread Bob Beck
 The Journal Of Child Psychology And Psychiatry has concluded that an
 estimated 98 percent of children under the age of 10 are remorseless
 sociopaths with little regard for anything other than their own egocentric
 interests and pleasures.

 http://www.theonion.com/content/news/new_study_reveals_most_children

 I just don't think in this case here that it is limited to Children only.
 (;

The people who publish such research, and those that read it and find
it novel have obviously never been parents themselves, or even
someone's boss.

People are at the core motivated by their own self-interest.  Anyone
who says they aren't is selling something.



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-12-14 Thread Bryan Allen
+--
| On 2009-12-14 10:17:54, Bob Beck wrote:
| 
|  http://www.theonion.com/content/news/new_study_reveals_most_children
| 
| The people who publish such research, and those that read it and find
| it novel have obviously never been parents themselves, or even
| someone's boss.
| 
| People are at the core motivated by their own self-interest.  Anyone
| who says they aren't is selling something.

Yes, they're selling hilarity. It's The Onion, after all.
-- 
bda
cyberpunk is dead. long live cyberpunk.



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-12-14 Thread Bob Beck
 | People are at the core motivated by their own self-interest.  Anyone
 | who says they aren't is selling something.

 Yes, they're selling hilarity. It's The Onion, after all.

Yes, but it's funny because it's true.  Even OpenBSD developers are
motivated by self interest...Ever wonder why the answers on misc@ are
so taunting or dismissive for people who whine without producing code?



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-12-14 Thread Matthew Szudzik
On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 05:03:40PM +0100, Marc Espie wrote:
 Considering the design of X, I don't expect any valid security model to emerge
 out of it.

The Competitors to X section of the X11 Wikipedia page has some
interesting comments about alternatives to X

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System#Competitors_to_X

Unfortunately, none of them are close to becoming a reality in the near
future.



Re: WAY OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-12-14 Thread Paul M

On 15/12/2009, at 7:10 AM, Bob Beck wrote:


| People are at the core motivated by their own self-interest.  Anyone
| who says they aren't is selling something.

Yes, they're selling hilarity. It's The Onion, after all.


Yes, but it's funny because it's true.  Even OpenBSD developers are
motivated by self interest...Ever wonder why the answers on misc@ are
so taunting or dismissive for people who whine without producing code?


Self interest is probably THE most basic instinct of any creature 
anywhere

 - it's how the species survives.
Kids learn, as they grow, to temper it and become more 'human', but it
remains the root of survival of the species.


paulm



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-12-12 Thread Duncan Patton a Campbell
On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:51:03 -0800
Ted Unangst ted.unan...@gmail.com wrote:

 
 How many people are aware that any X program can listen to the  
 keystrokes of any other X program?
 

Any machine running or accessed by an X-machine is fundamentally insecure 
to whatever level of perms the accessor has.  Which doesn't mean that I 
don't use X, just that I assume, a-priori, that anything on X is common-wealth.


Dhu



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-12-12 Thread Lars Nooden

On Sat, 12 Dec 2009, Duncan Patton a Campbell wrote:

On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:51:03 -0800
Ted Unangst ted.unan...@gmail.com wrote:

How many people are aware that any X program can listen to the
keystrokes of any other X program?


Any machine running or accessed by an X-machine is fundamentally 
insecure to whatever level of perms the accessor has.  Which doesn't 
mean that I don't use X, just that I assume, a-priori, that anything on 
X is common-wealth.


So everything under X should be considered available to everything else 
under X.


I presume new models for displays, or new ways to get some kind of 
privilege separation for X, have been discussed to death 
already.  Is there any key discussion or publication?


/Lars



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-26 Thread rhubbell
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:37:36 +1100
Aaron Mason wrote:

 On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 2:06 PM, rhubbell rhubb...@ihubbell.com wrote:
  On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:02:51 +1100
 
  Definitely not missing the point. Maybe you missed mine. Not worrying
  because you trust everything about OpenBSD and everyone that's worked
  on it and every package you've installed and every piece of hardware
  you've installed, etc., etc.  It's naive to point elsewhere and say
  see, they're not secure. For example should I trust you and the
  other tooters just because you insist OpenBSD's secure?
 
 
 That's a good point.  However a story told on the testimonials page is
 a good reason not to take our word for it, because it's been
 demonstrated.  A redhat server rooted but OpenBSD servers left after

Maybe an OpenBSD tooter was the rooter?

 being probed is quite a feat.  A P133 w/ 64mb of RAM being floodpinged
 by 900 hosts that only got a little slower from it is also a
 considerable achievement.

Agreed.

 
 
  How would you know if you've been compromised? If it's the crown
  jewels it may be worth it to remain undetected, right? Saying it's not
  possible to avoid detection is naive.
 

 Usually when a machine is compromised, it is then used to attack other

How much is an exploit worth? If you're going to reveal the fact you've
compromised a system, it's not worth that much.

 sites - that would be detected.  A large sudden data transfer from a
 machine with the company's crown jewels on it would be a pretty good
 indicator as well.  If the log files are sent offsite - a very wise
 move I believe - they could contain traces of the attack as well.  I'm
 not naive though - you would actually have to be watching these, and
 if you're not, today's a good day to start.
 
 Hope this helps.
 
 
 --
 Aaron Mason - Programmer, open source addict
 I've taken my software vows - for beta or for worse



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-26 Thread rhubbell
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:31:47 +1100
Rod Whitworth wrote:

 On Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:06:53 -0800, rhubbell wrote:
 8 snipped for brevity.
  You miss the point - the reason we toot that particular horn is that
  you don't have to worry about those sorts of things (well, apart from
 
 Definitely not missing the point. Maybe you missed mine. Not worrying
 because you trust everything about OpenBSD and everyone that's worked on
 it and every package you've installed and every piece of hardware you've
 installed, etc., etc.  It's naive to point elsewhere and say see,
 they're not secure. For example should I trust you and the other
 tooters just because you insist OpenBSD's secure?
 
 No. That isn't the point really. It's very rare for OpenBSD to have
 exploits against it but I don't hear any of the developers saying that

How would you know though? Your argument has been compromised because it's
presuming the exploit's detectable.

 it is impregnable, just that it's as good as they can make it for their
 own peace of mind. They are continually re-reading the source and using
 various tools to do audits to help make the code correct. Correct code
 is a foundation of security. 
 As you are new here, you may not yet know that OpenBSD doesn't give a
 stuff about  market share and is developed by the devs for their own
 use and if someone else likes it, it's a case of Here's the ftp server
 or you can buy a CD and if it suits your purpose, that's fine. If it
 doesn't then we won't cry when you leave.

I'm finding it amusing that when folks on the list ask a question
answered in the docs it's always RTFM. But when not asking for documented
info it comes flwoing out. (^:

 
 That has suited me for about 8 years and it has guarded quite a few
 crown jewels for my clients in that time.

Guarded by which definition? Meaning as far as you know it was never
compromised?

 
 Oh, and I'm a retired IBM Linux instructor so I have a pretty good
 insight into the relative merits of this community vs that one.

Too vague for me.
 
 
 
 The point of most chuckling about others (distros,versions, dev teams)
 silly actions is that the OpenBSD community doesn't suffer the
 stupidity du jour. Recent sightings elsewhere are binary blobs,
 proprietary drivers and the really stupid Debian key messup.
 
 Just a bit of Schaudenfreude really when you consider that their woe
 is
 self-inflicted.

Right so my point is that I still find it interesting that
these threads about look at them are just some hand-waving.

Look over there, look how they are, hahaha. That to me is a red flag to
be more vigilant and to not look over there, but they seem to be trying to
distract from vigilance.



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-26 Thread rhubbell
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:22:45 -0500
Brad Tilley wrote:

 On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 10:06 PM, rhubbell rhubb...@ihubbell.com wrote:
 
  It's naive to point elsewhere and say see, they're not secure.
 
 Other similar systems are not as secure and that has been objectively
 demonstrated. Here's one example. See the chart at the top of page

Ok, since you say it's objective it must be.



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-26 Thread rhubbell
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:22:08 +0100
soko.tica wrote:

 On 11/20/09, rhubbell rhubb...@ihubbell.com wrote:
  Definitely not missing the point. Maybe you missed mine. Not worrying
  because you trust everything about OpenBSD and everyone that's worked
  on it and every package you've installed and every piece of hardware
  you've installed, etc., etc.  It's naive to point elsewhere and say
  see, they're not secure. For example should I trust you and the
  other tooters just because you insist OpenBSD's secure?
 
 OpenBSD's security isn't affected at all if we, as users, insist on it.

I insist on things all the time.



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-26 Thread rhubbell
On Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:00:08 +1100
SJP Lists wrote:

 2009/11/20 rhubbell rhubb...@ihubbell.com:
 
  Definitely not missing the point. Maybe you missed mine. Not worrying
  because you trust everything about OpenBSD and everyone that's worked
  on it and every package you've installed and every piece of hardware
  you've installed, etc., etc.  It's naive to point elsewhere and say
  see, they're not secure. For example should I trust you and the
  other tooters just because you insist OpenBSD's secure?
 
 It's not about absolute trust, or faith, it's about playing the odds.
 
 You can choose a OS built with security as the primary focus at one
 extreme, or one that's insecure by default at the other.
 
 No OS will be absolutely secure, but at least one tries to be.
 
I know.



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-26 Thread Brad Tilley
On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 2:10 PM, rhubbell rhubb...@ihubbell.com wrote:
 On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:22:45 -0500
 Brad Tilley wrote:

 On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 10:06 PM, rhubbell rhubb...@ihubbell.com wrote:

  It's naive to point elsewhere and say see, they're not secure.

 Other similar systems are not as secure and that has been objectively
 demonstrated. Here's one example. See the chart at the top of page

 Ok, since you say it's objective it must be.

It's as objective as you'll find. OpenSolaris is based on Solaris
which is Sun's OS (Sun sponsored the research) and they treated
OpenSolaris just like the others. One concern was the amount of change
compared to the amount of bugs. From the paper,  ... The Linux kernel
has been checked with the Coverity Prevent tool in multiple years. It
was surprising to us to find that many bugs in code we thought to be
clean, however, the churn rate in the Linux community is higher than
that in the other two communities.

Rate of change is crucial. I just saw this quote from Greg
Kroah-Hartman in an interview at http://howsoftwareisbuilt.com: Well,
just to touch back on that rate of change that I mentioned before, I
just looked it up, and we add 11,000 lines, remove 5500 lines, and
modify 2200 lines every single day [to the Linux kernel].

Systems with that amount of change are more prone to failure. I would
not want to fly on an airplane that got a new, different engine bolted
on every week. I think that's the point of the comparisons. Nothing
against other systems, they are fine for certain things and thank
goodness for companies such as RedHat that tame that change into
something manageable.

Brad



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-24 Thread SJP Lists
2009/11/20 rhubbell rhubb...@ihubbell.com:

 Definitely not missing the point. Maybe you missed mine. Not worrying
 because you trust everything about OpenBSD and everyone that's worked on
 it and every package you've installed and every piece of hardware you've
 installed, etc., etc.  It's naive to point elsewhere and say see, they're
 not secure. For example should I trust you and the other tooters just
 because you insist OpenBSD's secure?

It's not about absolute trust, or faith, it's about playing the odds.

You can choose a OS built with security as the primary focus at one
extreme, or one that's insecure by default at the other.

No OS will be absolutely secure, but at least one tries to be.



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-20 Thread Brad Tilley
On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 10:06 PM, rhubbell rhubb...@ihubbell.com wrote:

 It's naive to point elsewhere and say see, they're not secure.

Other similar systems are not as secure and that has been objectively
demonstrated. Here's one example. See the chart at the top of page
three: 
http://research.sun.com/projects/downunder/publications/documents/kca09.pdf

If you care about these things, then you use OpenBSD.

Brad



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-20 Thread Oliver Peter
On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:05:04 -0800
Bryan bra...@gmail.com wrote:

 So glad we don't have these kinds of issues...
 
 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=534047

And finally...

https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-November/msg01445.html

Good fun though.

-- 
Oliver PETER email: oli...@peter.de.com ICQ# 113969174
I'm just a simple man trying to make my way in the universe.
-- Jango Fett



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-20 Thread soko.tica
On 11/20/09, rhubbell rhubb...@ihubbell.com wrote:
 Definitely not missing the point. Maybe you missed mine. Not worrying
 because you trust everything about OpenBSD and everyone that's worked on
 it and every package you've installed and every piece of hardware you've
 installed, etc., etc.  It's naive to point elsewhere and say see, they're
 not secure. For example should I trust you and the other tooters just
 because you insist OpenBSD's secure?

OpenBSD's security isn't affected at all if we, as users, insist on it.

It's the proven record.

While others get new GUIs with each new release of their OS of choice,
we get tmux, and security fix of a remote vulnerability of a non-base
package within 2 hours since it became known.

We, non-technical users, see the no-nonsense attitude of devs on this very list.

I haven't seen any tooting here, devs are busy with more important
work than to campaign that our OS of choice is of different league
from any other.

We already know that.



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-19 Thread rhubbell
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:02:51 +1100
Aaron Mason wrote:

 On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 5:40 PM, rhubbell rhubb...@ihubbell.com wrote:
  On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:05:04 -0800
  Bryan wrote:
 
  So glad we don't have these kinds of issues...
 
  New around here, but I'm noticing a lot of tooting of our own
  horn...so to speak.  With all the possible vectors for compromising a
  system that are available it just sounds naive to keep touting how
  secure this or that is. Do you own the physical network that your bits
  traverse? Do you guard your computer 24-7? And on and on.
 
 You miss the point - the reason we toot that particular horn is that
 you don't have to worry about those sorts of things (well, apart from

Definitely not missing the point. Maybe you missed mine. Not worrying
because you trust everything about OpenBSD and everyone that's worked on
it and every package you've installed and every piece of hardware you've
installed, etc., etc.  It's naive to point elsewhere and say see, they're
not secure. For example should I trust you and the other tooters just
because you insist OpenBSD's secure?

 24-7 guarding, that's an entirely separate problem that has nothing to
 do with OpenBSD or any OS for that matter).  People report that they
 can get a novice colleague to set up an OpenBSD box using just the CD,
 copy the company's crown jewels to it and leave it for a year, knowing
 that it has never been compromised.

How would you know if you've been compromised? If it's the crown jewels it
may be worth it to remain undetected, right? Saying it's not possible to
avoid detection is naive.

 
 
  I will say the Fedora has bigger issues than allowing users to install
  pkgs. I just went through trying out Fedora 11 and it was a nightmare
  to me.  Doing simple things with the network has been made so painful
  that clawing out my eyes started to seem like relief.  But maybe all
  flavors are going this way. Part of the never ending bloat.
 
 
 
 OpenBSD is one of a few OSes that aren't taking this path.  If you
 want the bloat, you add it yourself - it isn't included out of the
 box.

Right, it's why I am trying it out.

 
 I used to run Ubuntu on my firewall - I found it easier to edit
 /etc/network/interfaces manually than to use GNOME's retarded GUI
 network config tool.  I fired up OpenBSD 4.5 and haven't looked back.

Yep, been there, used ubuntu for a while, recently tried Fedora11 and now
here I am.



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-19 Thread Aaron Mason
On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 2:06 PM, rhubbell rhubb...@ihubbell.com wrote:
 On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:02:51 +1100

 Definitely not missing the point. Maybe you missed mine. Not worrying
 because you trust everything about OpenBSD and everyone that's worked on
 it and every package you've installed and every piece of hardware you've
 installed, etc., etc.  It's naive to point elsewhere and say see, they're
 not secure. For example should I trust you and the other tooters just
 because you insist OpenBSD's secure?


That's a good point.  However a story told on the testimonials page is
a good reason not to take our word for it, because it's been
demonstrated.  A redhat server rooted but OpenBSD servers left after
being probed is quite a feat.  A P133 w/ 64mb of RAM being floodpinged
by 900 hosts that only got a little slower from it is also a
considerable achievement.


 How would you know if you've been compromised? If it's the crown jewels it
 may be worth it to remain undetected, right? Saying it's not possible to
 avoid detection is naive.


Usually when a machine is compromised, it is then used to attack other
sites - that would be detected.  A large sudden data transfer from a
machine with the company's crown jewels on it would be a pretty good
indicator as well.  If the log files are sent offsite - a very wise
move I believe - they could contain traces of the attack as well.  I'm
not naive though - you would actually have to be watching these, and
if you're not, today's a good day to start.

Hope this helps.


--
Aaron Mason - Programmer, open source addict
I've taken my software vows - for beta or for worse



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-19 Thread Rod Whitworth
On Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:06:53 -0800, rhubbell wrote:
8 snipped for brevity.
 You miss the point - the reason we toot that particular horn is that
 you don't have to worry about those sorts of things (well, apart from

Definitely not missing the point. Maybe you missed mine. Not worrying
because you trust everything about OpenBSD and everyone that's worked on
it and every package you've installed and every piece of hardware you've
installed, etc., etc.  It's naive to point elsewhere and say see, they're
not secure. For example should I trust you and the other tooters just
because you insist OpenBSD's secure?

No. That isn't the point really. It's very rare for OpenBSD to have
exploits against it but I don't hear any of the developers saying that
it is impregnable, just that it's as good as they can make it for their
own peace of mind. They are continually re-reading the source and using
various tools to do audits to help make the code correct. Correct code
is a foundation of security. 
As you are new here, you may not yet know that OpenBSD doesn't give a
stuff about  market share and is developed by the devs for their own
use and if someone else likes it, it's a case of Here's the ftp server
or you can buy a CD and if it suits your purpose, that's fine. If it
doesn't then we won't cry when you leave.

That has suited me for about 8 years and it has guarded quite a few
crown jewels for my clients in that time.

Oh, and I'm a retired IBM Linux instructor so I have a pretty good
insight into the relative merits of this community vs that one.



The point of most chuckling about others (distros,versions, dev teams)
silly actions is that the OpenBSD community doesn't suffer the
stupidity du jour. Recent sightings elsewhere are binary blobs,
proprietary drivers and the really stupid Debian key messup.

Just a bit of Schaudenfreude really when you consider that their woe is
self-inflicted.



*** NOTE *** Please DO NOT CC me. I am subscribed to the list.
Mail to the sender address that does not originate at the list server is 
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reply off list. Thankyou.

Rod/
---
This life is not the real thing.
It is not even in Beta.
If it was, then OpenBSD would already have a man page for it.



OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-18 Thread Bryan
So glad we don't have these kinds of issues...

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=534047



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-18 Thread Gilles Chehade
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 04:05:04PM -0800, Bryan wrote:
 So glad we don't have these kinds of issues...
 
 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=534047
 

no one offered a diff to implement that feature on OpenBSD yet ?
it can easily be done by writing a sudoKit policy :-)

Gilles

-- 
Gilles Chehade
freelance developer/sysadmin/consultant

   http://www.poolp.org



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-18 Thread Abel Abraham Camarillo Ojeda
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 04:05:04PM -0800, Bryan wrote:
 So glad we don't have these kinds of issues...
 
 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=534047
 

Wow that's tremendously funny.

-- 
DISCLAIMER: http://goldmark.org/jeff/stupid-disclaimers/ 
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Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-18 Thread Bryan
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 16:55, Abel Abraham Camarillo Ojeda
acam...@the00z.org wrote:
 On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 04:05:04PM -0800, Bryan wrote:
 So glad we don't have these kinds of issues...

 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=534047


 Wow that's tremendously funny.

 --
 DISCLAIMER: http://goldmark.org/jeff/stupid-disclaimers/
 This message will self-destruct in 3 seconds.


I particular like comment #8, where one of the devs basically says
this is a feature, not a bug



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-18 Thread Ted Unangst
Before everyone goes too bonkers, consider exactly how safe/dangerous  
this behavior actually is on a single user machine.  Food for thought.


Think to yourself: what *exactly* is the difference between the only  
user account on your machine and root? How are you safe?


On Nov 18, 2009, at 4:05 PM, Bryan bra...@gmail.com wrote:


So glad we don't have these kinds of issues...

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=534047




Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-18 Thread Theo de Raadt
 Before everyone goes too bonkers, consider exactly how safe/dangerous  
 this behavior actually is on a single user machine.  Food for thought.
 
 Think to yourself: what *exactly* is the difference between the only  
 user account on your machine and root? How are you safe?

Not everyone runs firefox as root, like you Ted.

Blurring all the lines is the wrong assesment.  Yes, a lot of safety
is about hurdles.  The sidewalk is raised to a different height than
the road as a hurdle, and it has a safety benefit.  It reduces the
danger for pedestrians because drivers don't what want the hurdle of
replacing their rims.  That is safety.

I prefer the hurdles.



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-18 Thread Martin Schröder
2009/11/19 Ted Unangst ted.unan...@gmail.com:
 Think to yourself: what *exactly* is the difference between the only user
 account on your machine and root? How are you safe?

And then you create a guest account on your netbook...

Read the comments. There are some interesting exploits for this...

Best
   Martin



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-18 Thread Eric Furman
On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:08 -0800, Bryan bra...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 16:55, Abel Abraham Camarillo Ojeda
 acam...@the00z.org wrote:
  On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 04:05:04PM -0800, Bryan wrote:
  So glad we don't have these kinds of issues...
 
  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=534047
 
 
  Wow that's tremendously funny.
 
  --
  DISCLAIMER: http://goldmark.org/jeff/stupid-disclaimers/
  This message will self-destruct in 3 seconds.
 
 
 I particular like comment #8, where one of the devs basically says
 this is a feature, not a bug
 

Holy crap, you're right! This is funny as hell.
I originally had not read the comments section.
I especially liked;
I don't particularly care how UNIX has always worked.
In other words; I don't particularly care about security you
masturbating monkeys. :)



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-18 Thread Abel Abraham Camarillo Ojeda
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 05:38:38PM -0800, Ted Unangst wrote:
 Before everyone goes too bonkers, consider exactly how safe/dangerous  
 this behavior actually is on a single user machine.  Food for thought.

 Think to yourself: what *exactly* is the difference between the only  
 user account on your machine and root? How are you safe?

 On Nov 18, 2009, at 4:05 PM, Bryan bra...@gmail.com wrote:

 So glad we don't have these kinds of issues...

 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=534047


well i think that the problem is that the new *feature* is enabled by
default, it will definitely be useful on desktops/netbook/whatever.

-- 
DISCLAIMER: http://goldmark.org/jeff/stupid-disclaimers/ 
This message will self-destruct in 3 seconds.



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-18 Thread James Peltier
--- On Wed, 11/18/09, Bryan bra...@gmail.com wrote:

 From: Bryan bra...@gmail.com
 Subject: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?
 To: Misc OpenBSD misc@openbsd.org
 Received: Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 7:05 PM
 So glad we don't have these kinds of
 issues...
 
 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=534047
 
 

This is a blatant ID10T error.  Comments 9 and 10 are my favorite.  Last I 
looked it *was* insecure to let non-root users install software let alone do it 
by default and without a password!


---
James A. Peltier james_a_pelt...@yahoo.ca


  __
Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr! 

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Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-18 Thread Ted Unangst
On Nov 18, 2009, at 5:47 PM, Theo de Raadt dera...@cvs.openbsd.org  
wrote:



Before everyone goes too bonkers, consider exactly how safe/dangerous
this behavior actually is on a single user machine.  Food for  
thought.


Think to yourself: what *exactly* is the difference between the only
user account on your machine and root? How are you safe?


Not everyone runs firefox as root, like you Ted.


It's the easiest way to nice it to -10...




Blurring all the lines is the wrong assesment.  Yes, a lot of safety
is about hurdles.  The sidewalk is raised to a different height than
the road as a hurdle, and it has a safety benefit.  It reduces the
danger for pedestrians because drivers don't what want the hurdle of
replacing their rims.  That is safety.

I prefer the hurdles.




Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-18 Thread Ted Unangst

If you give untrusted people unsupervised access to your laptop, I
hope you have a better lock than I do.

On Nov 18, 2009, at 5:45 PM, Martin SchrC6der mar...@oneiros.de wrote:


2009/11/19 Ted Unangst ted.unan...@gmail.com:

Think to yourself: what *exactly* is the difference between the
only user
account on your machine and root? How are you safe?


And then you create a guest account on your netbook...

Read the comments. There are some interesting exploits for this...

Best
  Martin




Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-18 Thread Ted Unangst

Not a change i would make, but for a desktop? Not a big deal.

On Nov 18, 2009, at 5:48 PM, Eric Furman misc@openbsd.org wrote:


but making it *default* behaviour??

On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:38 -0800, Ted Unangst ted.unan...@gmail.com
wrote:

Before everyone goes too bonkers, consider exactly how safe/dangerous
this behavior actually is on a single user machine.  Food for  
thought.


Think to yourself: what *exactly* is the difference between the only
user account on your machine and root? How are you safe?

On Nov 18, 2009, at 4:05 PM, Bryan bra...@gmail.com wrote:


So glad we don't have these kinds of issues...

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=534047




Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-18 Thread Jacob Meuser
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 05:38:38PM -0800, Ted Unangst wrote:
 Before everyone goes too bonkers, consider exactly how safe/dangerous  
 this behavior actually is on a single user machine.

but did they also by default restrict the system to 1 user?

it's not so much the idea that's laughable, but the way it was
implemented.

What I contest is that to *undo* it you need to be an experienced
system admin that knows how to write policykit policies and where
to drop them.

I think we can count the number of people able to do that on the
tips of my fingers. - Simo Sorce, Software Engineer at Red Hat, Inc.

-- 
jake...@sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org



Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-18 Thread Ted Unangst
To be sure, I don't think it's the best idea. But practically? For  
actual users running fedora? I doubt the change makes much difference  
for many of them.


The reason I even brought this up is not because I like the idea, but  
because I think it is a good opportunity to reflect on what user  
permissions accomplish on a typical desktop machine. Consider where  
your secrets, whatever they may be, are kept and how you access them.


How many people are aware that any X program can listen to the  
keystrokes of any other X program?


When you type your password into sudo, how do you know it's the real  
sudo? How do you know you aren't running badsudo because you're  
actually running badsh and it redirected your path?


On Nov 18, 2009, at 8:49 PM, Jacob Meuser jake...@sdf.lonestar.org  
wrote:



On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 05:38:38PM -0800, Ted Unangst wrote:

Before everyone goes too bonkers, consider exactly how safe/dangerous
this behavior actually is on a single user machine.


but did they also by default restrict the system to 1 user?

it's not so much the idea that's laughable, but the way it was
implemented.

What I contest is that to *undo* it you need to be an experienced
system admin that knows how to write policykit policies and where
to drop them.

I think we can count the number of people able to do that on the
tips of my fingers. - Simo Sorce, Software Engineer at Red Hat, Inc.

--
jake...@sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org




Re: OT: Have you hugged your local OpenBSD dev lately?

2009-11-18 Thread rhubbell
On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:05:04 -0800
Bryan wrote:

 So glad we don't have these kinds of issues...

New around here, but I'm noticing a lot of tooting of our own horn...so to
speak.  With all the possible vectors for compromising a system that are
available it just sounds naive to keep touting how secure this or that is.
Do you own the physical network that your bits traverse? Do you guard your
computer 24-7? And on and on.

I will say the Fedora has bigger issues than allowing users to install
pkgs. I just went through trying out Fedora 11 and it was a nightmare to
me.  Doing simple things with the network has been made so painful that
clawing out my eyes started to seem like relief.  But maybe all flavors
are going this way. Part of the never ending bloat.