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Unix permissions were written at a time where the (multi user) system was protecting itself from the user. Every program ran at the same privileges of the user, because it wasn't a security consideration that maybe the program doesn't do what the user thinks it does. That's why in the list of classic Unix tools there is nothing to sandbox programs or anything like that, it was a non issue

And today this is.. not sufficient. What we require today is to run software protected from each other. For quite some time I tried to use Unix permissions for this (one user per application I run), but it's totally unworkable. You need a capabilities model, not an user permission model

Anyway I already linked this elsewhere in this thread but in this comment it's a better fit https://xkcd.com/1200/





There's FreeBSD's Capsicum. It's a full-blown sandboxing mode and capability framework. Unfortunately, Linux didn't adopt it and chose chaos.

This is why my daily driver is https://qubes-os.org

>And today this is.. not sufficient. What we require today is to run software protected from each other. For quite some time I tried to use Unix permissions for this (one user per application I run), but it's totally unworkable. You need a capabilities model, not an user permission model

Unix permissions remain a fundamental building block of Android's sandbox. Each app runs as its own unix user.


Android sandboxing works in spite of the underlying security model, not because of it. It's also really selinux that does a lot of heavy lifting.

Subthread from a while ago where I wrote some details on how Android sandboxing architecture uses Linux’s primitives: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40676309

I really want a desktop distro that is based on Android but can run normal desktop apps, fully isolated by default

Can Binder run on desktop, with some non-mainline kernel? Is someone maintaining such kernel with up to date patches?


I feel like apparmor is getting there, very, very slowly. Just need every package to come with a declarative profile or fallback to a strict default profile.

Yes but systemd is a full blown sandboxing system, and he said the two working in concert.



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