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I'm not surprised by news like this anymore. When will Linux distributions properly sandbox our applications? Our phones have had a better permission system fo

I'm not surprised by news like this anymore. When will Linux distributions properly sandbox our applications? Our phones have had a better permission system for years.

Gander5739 4d ago
Android allows apps to read from the clipboard at will, though it does show a toast. GrapheneOS, I believe, asks for permission first.
- wilkystyle 4d ago
  Thankfully iOS rolled out a permissions prompt for this. Pretty illuminating just how often other apps read the clipboard, e.g. Google Maps reading my clipboard every time I tapped on the text field to search for a destination.
drnick1 4d ago
Linux generally presumes that you run trusted software, not some proprietary program that is approximately malware. If you want a "sandbox" run that program as a separate unprivileged user or use bubblewrap.
- amelius 3d ago
  > Linux generally presumes that you run trusted software, not some proprietary program that is approximately malware. But this statement basically says: "Linux has no good permission controls for running software". The assumption is flawed. Trusting software is not a true/false thing. Yes, you can use sandboxing tools, but how many people use them properly? How many usability bugs do they still have?
  - samus 3d ago
    Unix systems were initially designed to be multi-user systems (as in multiple meatbags accessing a mainframe across terminals), in an era before it was common to indiscriminately download and run applications from the internet. Files required explicit opt-in to become executable. There were always attempts at mischief, but it was deemed sufficient to separate user account from each other and denying direct access to the hardware so an account compromise wouldn't escalate to the rest of the system. Because of this heritage Android uses user accounts instead of namespaces a.k.a. containers (a much newer and less mature concept) to isolate apps from each other.

I'm not surprised by news like this anymore. When will Linux distributions properly sandbox our applications? Our phones have had a better permission system for years.

Gander5739 4d ago

Android allows apps to read from the clipboard at will, though it does show a toast. GrapheneOS, I believe, asks for permission first.

wilkystyle 4d ago
Thankfully iOS rolled out a permissions prompt for this. Pretty illuminating just how often other apps read the clipboard, e.g. Google Maps reading my clipboard every time I tapped on the text field to search for a destination.

drnick1 4d ago

Linux generally presumes that you run trusted software, not some proprietary program that is approximately malware. If you want a "sandbox" run that program as a separate unprivileged user or use bubblewrap.

amelius 3d ago
> Linux generally presumes that you run trusted software, not some proprietary program that is approximately malware. But this statement basically says: "Linux has no good permission controls for running software". The assumption is flawed. Trusting software is not a true/false thing. Yes, you can use sandboxing tools, but how many people use them properly? How many usability bugs do they still have?
- samus 3d ago
  Unix systems were initially designed to be multi-user systems (as in multiple meatbags accessing a mainframe across terminals), in an era before it was common to indiscriminately download and run applications from the internet. Files required explicit opt-in to become executable. There were always attempts at mischief, but it was deemed sufficient to separate user account from each other and denying direct access to the hardware so an account compromise wouldn't escalate to the rest of the system. Because of this heritage Android uses user accounts instead of namespaces a.k.a. containers (a much newer and less mature concept) to isolate apps from each other.