If only more Linux programs followed sandboxing best practices...

You're viewing a single thread.

94 comments

What if your app actually needs access to the internet?
- Or actually do anything useful? No network, no filesystem.. it's a hello world app isn't it..
  
  No filesystem access for a flatpak app just means it cant read host system files on its own, without user permission. You can still give it files or directories of files through the file explorer for the app to work with, just that it's much safer since it can only otherwise view files in its sandbox.
  
  Which is fine for some apps, try that with an IDE.
  
  Why does an IDE need unfettered access to my whole FS? Access to the project directory, and maybe the runtime directory, have to be enough.
  
  To be fair, the title says more apps, not all apps..
  
  There are portals: https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/desktop-integration.html#portals . they allow secure access to many features. Also any flatpak app still has access to a private app-specific filesystem, just not to the host.
  Doesn't work for all applications but for many sand boxing is possible without a loss of features.
  
  There's Obfuscate, an image redactor, and Metadata Cleaner which is self-descriptive. Both works properly without any filesystem access at all, because they use the file picker portal to ask the user for the files to be processed.
  
  Portal.
- Oh come on, what modern program actually needs to communicate or access the file system?
  
  Exactly all programs should be web based cloud subscription only. We don't want that filthy code on our rgb nvme drives
  
  Lol, sorry no network access either.
  
  Wouldn't want the gaping security hole open that is hypnotizing the user via RGB control.
  
  BRB, modulating my RGB to send data...
- Download the internet along with it!
  
  I'm self-hosting the entire internet. I hope you guys are enjoying yourselves.
  
  https://github.com/iiab/iiab
  
  That's super cool. I bookmarked it. Thanks!
  
  Lol
  
  Thanks for having us on your server... when can I get out again though?
  
  I just unplugged you. Give it a minute or two and no more pain.
  
  Thank you, good... bye
  
  Jane
  
  I remember in 1995-ish or something when I used the internet for the first time using the Netscape browser.... And I was asking a friend if he had tried all the web sites yet. Just got a weird look back.... :) I didn't know what the internet was back then at first.
- The app can then declare the network permission and it will still be marked as safe.

94 comments