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[Stephen John Smoogen]

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 3:19 PM, Lennart Poettering
<mzerqung at 0pointer.de> wrote:
> On Mon, 27.10.08 17:04, seth vidal (skvidal at fedoraproject.org) wrote:
>
>>
>> On Mon, 2008-10-27 at 21:49 +0100, Lennart Poettering wrote:
>> > > Disabling firewalls on individual systems be they desktops or servers is
>> > > a BAD idea. Full stop.
>> >
>> > That is nonsense.
>> >
>> > Firewalls on a desktop make no sense, and David is right is that it is
>> > a relic and not much more. It's paranoia at best to keep this
>> > installed by default.
>>
>>
>> I don't know what kind of desktops you're referring to but desktops  are
>> the soft-squishy inside that gets large corporate networks in deep
>> trouble when there is an border fw breach. This is why it is important
>> to have a multi-layered security policy/infrastructure.
>> 1. border fw
>> 2. host-based fw  - including desktops
>> 3. deny-all policies at the system level
>> 4. well-audited apps that are runnable
>> 5. restrictive policies on what can be run at all.
>>
>> If you want to argue that enhancing the firewall technology that we are
>> currently using to allow a more nuanced user-interaction other than 'on'
>> or 'off' that's fine by me - but relying on selinux to solve all
>> network-border issues seems like the wrong tool for the job.
>
> You're missing the point. It makes no sense to split items 2-5. If a
> user wants to run an application then he will sit down and reconfigure
> all the firewalls he has control over until things work for him. (If he is not
> capable of that then he will file a bug and cry). And hence, having
> those four levels of defense is just pointless. A user will circumvent
> that anyway if he wants to run his app. The firewall hence simply
> works as an annoying extra step. It's like a message box asking you:
>
>      "Hey, you just started application 'foo'. Are you really sure you
>      want to do that? I mean *really*?"
>
> And if the users says "yes", then it will show another box:
>
>      "I don't believe you, but I will allow you to do it if you solve
>      the following difficult math problem!"
>
> Having desktop firewalls is security theatre. Having 20 levels of
> false and inappropriate security is worse then having a single level
> of security that is appropriate for the task.

My guess is that having priv-sep, passwords, etc are all security
theatre for the desktop user in this case. I mean if application X
can't work without me being root then why not be root? If having a
password slows me down from getting stuff done, why not remove it. For
this level.. why are we doing anything beyond Windows 98 which seems
to be the perfect desktop platform.



-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- BSD/GNU/Linux
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"