Written by gQuigs the 12 Mar 08 at 04:42.
Category: Security.
Related project:
Nothing/Others.
Status: New
Rationale
I believe we need to be proactive about the security of our systems. Also, I think Fedora fully uses SELinux for all of there default desktop applications.
Security should not be an add-on after the fact. We also should endeavor to make sure people's first reaction is not to turn it off. Fedora has failed at that with SELinux, many guides have that as their first step after installing.
This would also require a GUI for notifying a user of a security breach (and allowing them to allow it?)
I'm a conspiracy theorists. Anything the NSA does has to be evil. :)
Seriously though, It's a wonderful idea. I just worry that your average user wouldn't even understand what it is and as a lot of people aren't inclined to learn about their system, it would leave them confused. It's a shame that something that makes your system incredible safe is overlooked often for ease of use. Flask should be implemented on all operating systems, and by all I mean that Microsoft needs to get their act together.
FreeBSD, OS X (via Darwin), and Solaris have all adopted implementations of Flask and that was probably my favorite default feature in Fedora Core. Security should be concern number one.
cheesehead(Brainstorm admin)
wrote on the 12 Mar 08 at 08:58
Let's see, the ports are closed by default, frequent background security updates, immune to Outlook viruses, prompts for admin password before installing anything, permissions hierarchy prevents programs from running amok, AppArmor. Yeah, I can see your point that nobody has paid attention to security in the last 40 years.
Improve the existing tools, which are plentiful and adequate. No new layers.
No technology will fully defend from that rich fellow in Nigeria or other social viruses...
My mother doesn't want to see security pop-ups, and won't know what to do with them. Don't scare her.
The typical user should not need to understand selinux at all, just as the typical user doesn't need to know how the internet works, what the kernel does, or how their cpu works.
The typical user should not need to write selinux policies at all. It's the job of the distro, to ship the best policies possible (Fedora does an awesome job in this).
And if there is really ever the need to write new rules, there are convenient tools like audit4rule. It just needs a nice GUI.
Security should never be optional, this holds true to the desktop too, which holds a lot of personal data.