On Saturday, 23 April 2016 at 13:56:45 UTC, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> On Saturday, 23 April 2016 at 11:29:29 UTC, NX wrote:
>> I will just leave it here:
>>
>> http://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-expert-matthew-garrett-ubuntu-16-04s-new-snap-format-is-a-security-risk/
>
> This is FUD.
>
> There are no security risks with snappy packages that there aren't with any other existing Linux packaging systems.

But that's more or less what he's saying though, if you read his original blog post. His gripe isn't that it's defect security-wise, but rather that it's being marketed as capital-s Safe. As long as programs run under the X protocol, everything is up for grabs. Snappy doesn't change that fact at all, so widely claiming it makes it impossible to steal data would be cherry-picking Mir behaviour.


"Snaps are intended to make it easier to distribute applications for Ubuntu - they include their dependencies rather than relying on the archive, they can be updated on a schedule that's separate from the distribution itself and they're confined by a strong security policy that makes it impossible for an app to steal your data.

At least, that's what Canonical assert. It's true in a sense - if you're using Snap packages on Mir (ie, Ubuntu mobile) then there's a genuine improvement in security. But if you're using X11 (ie, Ubuntu desktop) it's horribly, awfully misleading. Any Snap package you install is completely capable of copying all your private data to wherever it wants with very little difficulty.

The problem here is the X11 windowing system. X has no real concept of different levels of application trust. Any application can register to receive keystrokes from any other application. Any application can inject fake key events into the input stream. An application that is otherwise confined by strong security policies can simply type into another window. An application that has no access to any of your private data can wait until your session is idle, open an unconfined terminal and then use curl to send your data to a remote site. As long as Ubuntu desktop still uses X11, the Snap format provides you with very little meaningful security. Mir and Wayland both fix this, which is why Wayland is a prerequisite for the sandboxed xdg-app design."


Sandboxing is good but I'm not convinced shipping duplicates of libraries with each program is. Packages were meant to solve this and they do, though .so version conflicts is a thing (albeit a rare one).

On Saturday, 23 April 2016 at 15:13:15 UTC, Anonymouse wrote:
> But that's more or less what he's saying though, if you read his original blog post. His gripe isn't that it's defect security-wise, but rather that it's being marketed as capital-s Safe.

Except that his original blogpost is just saying something that has already been made perfectly clear in Ubuntu's technical outreach, and announcing it as if it's a new discovery of an issue that wasn't already known.

See e.g. https://youtu.be/lHO8j8uo5Z4?t=1127

> As long as programs run under the X protocol, everything is up for grabs. Snappy doesn't change that fact at all, so widely claiming it makes it impossible to steal data would be cherry-picking Mir behaviour.

Not entirely, because snap packages will have to specify that they wish to access X, and that opens up various scenarios both for package review and for the user to decide if that is acceptable for them -- again, see the video posted, a short while later: https://youtu.be/lHO8j8uo5Z4?t=1202

> At least, that's what Canonical assert. It's true in a sense - if you're using Snap packages on Mir (ie, Ubuntu mobile) then there's a genuine improvement in security.

... which is probably the widest use-case for snap packages ...

> But if you're using X11 (ie, Ubuntu desktop) it's horribly,
> awfully misleading. Any Snap package you install is
> completely capable of copying all your private data to
> wherever it wants with very little difficulty.

It's only "misleading" if (i) you discount the already-publicly-stated caveats about the limitations of snappy packages on an X11-based desktop and (ii) you discount the fact that snappy-packed apps must _request_ access to the X server and that precautions are being taken for how this is handled.

On the other hand, I feel it's distinctly misleading for someone to write a blog post saying, "Hey, I found a security flaw!" without mentioning either that the people responsible for the software have already publicly stated as much, _or_ the steps that they are taking to mitigate that.

When it comes from an author who already has previous form for attempting to whip up public drama around Ubuntu's projects, usually distorting the truth in the process, you'll forgive me if I don't feel some level of cynicism about his motives.

On Saturday, 23 April 2016 at 15:13:15 UTC, Anonymouse wrote:
> But that's more or less what he's saying though, if you read his original blog post.

Just to add further: while I have a lot of doubts about the motives behind the original blogpost (which I feel misleads by omission on several counts), remember that my original response was to someone posting an article whose title was "Ubuntu 16.04's new snap format is a security risk".

That's outright FUD and it deserves to be challenged strongly.