Package Manager Denies Permission to Install

[Craig White]

On Wed, 2009-01-21 at 13:42 -0800, Kam Leo wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 12:47 PM, Patrick O'Callaghan
> <pocallaghan at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 2:12 PM, Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler at chello.at> wrote:
> >> Richard Hughes wrote:
> >>> Sure, but my point if that GTK code is untrusted, and just not designed
> >>> to be run with elevated privileges. A buffer-overflow is an easy exploit
> >>> if the code is running as uid 0, whether running as setuid or as root.
> >>
> >> Why would you overflow a buffer on your own machine where you're already
> >> root? It makes sense to attack a setuid binary on a machine you're not root
> >> on, but it doesn't make sense to attack your own machine.
> >
> > Really?  In that case I invite you to visit my website evil.com and
> > click on a few links. Better still, log into my friendly server and
> > run a few of my apps. They're running on my machine, not yours. Of
> > course the GUI runs on your machine via X11 ...
> >
> > poc
> 
> A GUI is not required to compromise a machine. No need to go after the
> root user either. Take a gander here:
> http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/blogcategory/89/102/7/0/
----
well now...there's a cogent argument.

Suggesting that even though few of the applications that run on X are
audited for security when run as superuser, that it becomes acceptable
to do so because other exploits exist that don't require X to propagate.

Interesting logical expansion

Craig