Browser mode for nautilus

Stephen John Smoogen smooge at gmail.com
Tue Oct 28 05:50:55 UTC 2008


On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 4:01 PM, seth vidal <skvidal at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-10-27 at 15:29 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
>> O>
>> >> 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,
>  Here's the problem. Yours and My experience of users is most likely
> very different from David's or Lennart's. Our experience is of users who
> need to do a finite set of tasks for work and/or education. Everything
> else is either disallowed by policy and/or not supported/ignored.
>
> My experience of users is that if you give them a box and a set of rules
> that the overwhelming majority of them will live in that box quite fine.
> A handful of the folks who think of themselves as "power users" will
> bitch and moan and find a way to circumvent the rules. They'll complain
> to your boss to get you to change the rules just for them, they'll
> disable whatever they can. That feels a lot more like the user that
> Lennart and David are describing and it is NOT the users that You and I
> (and most of the sysadmins all over the world) actually experience. Or
> when we do experience them it is our penance of telling them no and then
> telling them no, again.
>
> The mistake I've made is thinking that
> desktop==sysadmin-maintained-desktop.
>
> What it seems like Lennart and David are describing is home and/or
> personal laptop/desktop. It's not for users like you and I think of.
> It's for people who have chosen to use linux, at home or on a machine
> they are exclusively in control of. A fairly narrow market from what I
> can see.

Ah ok. I guess I have spent so much time working on making sure that
people aren't sharing stuff on company owned systems... I forget that
there would be a reason beyond a torrent during testing for wanting to
do it otherwise.



-- 
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"




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