547
submitted 1 year ago by IverCoder@lemm.ee to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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[-] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 255 points 1 year ago

It's not fully sandboxed if it can write to my screen! That filthy app, writing stuff all over the place!

[-] onion@feddit.de 46 points 1 year ago

Sandboxes have been converted into quarantine bomb shelters, for child safety

[-] gentooer@programming.dev 41 points 1 year ago

Haskell programmers when you tell them the main function isn't pure

That's why we have Wayland. :)

[-] Strit@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show 147 points 1 year ago

What if your app actually needs access to the internet?

[-] tony@lemmy.hoyle.me.uk 166 points 1 year ago

Or actually do anything useful? No network, no filesystem.. it's a hello world app isn't it..

[-] cheerjoy@lemmy.world 124 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] snowfalldreamland@lemmy.ml 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[-] IverCoder@lemm.ee 24 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] Pantherina@feddit.de 23 points 1 year ago
[-] Empricorn@feddit.nl 37 points 1 year ago

Oh come on, what modern program actually needs to communicate or access the file system?

[-] Theoriginalthon@lemmy.world 48 points 1 year ago

Exactly all programs should be web based cloud subscription only. We don't want that filthy code on our rgb nvme drives

[-] Kbobabob@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

Lol, sorry no network access either.

[-] taladar@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago

Wouldn't want the gaping security hole open that is hypnotizing the user via RGB control.

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[-] QuazarOmega@lemy.lol 25 points 1 year ago

Download the internet along with it!

[-] ivanafterall@kbin.social 38 points 1 year ago

I'm self-hosting the entire internet. I hope you guys are enjoying yourselves.

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[-] IverCoder@lemm.ee 24 points 1 year ago

The app can then declare the network permission and it will still be marked as safe.

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[-] darth_tiktaalik@lemmy.ml 134 points 1 year ago

I like how the app name is blacked out so as not to dox the flathub app.

[-] Helmic@hexbear.net 40 points 1 year ago

Wouldn't want bad actors to find privacy respecting software.

[-] radioactiveradio@lemm.ee 35 points 1 year ago

Sanboxed from prying eyes, it's completely safe.

What really needs to happen:

Flatpak packages should ask for every permission they need, and the user needs to approve every one of them.

Right now, we have this weird in-between state where some flatpak packages ship with limited permissions (like Bottles). That's because every permission the package asks for is immediately granted. The user doesn't get a chance to refuse these requests. This current model serves to make life more difficult for non-malicious flatpak packagers while failing to protect users from malicious packages.

Also, GNOME needs a Flatpak permissions center like KDE. You shouldn't need to install a third party program to manage permissions.

[-] JoYo@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 year ago

it’s weird that android and ios already provide this but THE container standard doesn’t

[-] miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 year ago

Absolutely, permissions should be disabled by default, and only when the app needs to do something that requires a certain permission should it ask for it.

Maybe even do something like Android, where permissions automatically get revoked if you don't use an app for a certain time. I love that feature.

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[-] Gentoo1337@sh.itjust.works 47 points 1 year ago
[-] IverCoder@lemm.ee 48 points 1 year ago

It's actually Dippi but I don't want to look like I'm advertising it here

[-] bingbong@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 year ago

!peepee !< is safe

[-] lemann@lemmy.one 35 points 1 year ago

This kind of thing could work for a few apps, say a color picker utility or a QR code generator etc.

Looking at the docs, it isn't clear if apps can write to their own namespace (instead of writing to user folders directly), but if they can, we could expand the scope to games like supertuxkart, 2048 etc, which would then be able to save user milestones and progress in their own area - a bit like how Android apps do it

https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/sandbox-permissions.html

It's a great start IMO, although admittedly there is still work to do. Flatpak atm bridges the gap with allowing new apps, requiring new libs, to run on older stable/LTS distros

[-] themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 year ago

Yes, they can. There are app-specific folders in .local that flatpaks can read and write to specifically for this purpose, and also the file picking dialog may give access to the one specific file you picked.

Android IMO has great usability in exposing a database to apps, which means they aren't required to ship their own database engine.

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[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 33 points 1 year ago

Likes like Hello World is ready to ship.

[-] IverCoder@lemm.ee 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

With a bit of modifying code to use the color picker and maybe rearranging the workflow to adapt to the new system, apps as advanced as DaVinci Resolve and LibreOffice can have permissions as restrictive as this (the network permission would of course may be needed but it would still be marked as Safe by Flathub).

You can use the file picker API to open the files or folders your app would need to access while having no filesystem permissions at all. You can access the camera, microphone, and GPS without the user devices portal, by simply using the respective portals where the user has the power to allow or deny access to such devices as they wish.

You can record the screen, take a screenshot, and pick a color in the screen by simply calling the proper portals, with the bonus that the user will be able to select if they want the entire screen, a specific window, or a specific area to be recorded/captured and whether the cursor should be shown or not.

Heck, even TeamViewer can be as this restricted without losing any functionality if they use the Screen Cast portal which allows apps to mirror input from a remote device! They would of course need the network permission, but that's still safe.

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[-] kuneho@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago

this sandbox craze is slowly pushing things back to the point where we used cartridges and booted off from them straight to the program. who needs an OS at this point? it's bundled with the app anyway 😆

/s, somewhat

[-] soulfirethewolf 22 points 1 year ago

It's nice to see good app security being praised. Sometimes it feels like some people on lemmy (and the fediverse) throw security to the wind.

Like one time I had heard someone over on Mastodon say that they thought that HTTPS was too overused and shouldn't have been everywhere because it makes older apps unable to access sites and also made adblocking just ever so slightly harder.

Which yeah, I love adblockers, but I'm definitely not comfortable with all traffic having to go unencrypted just for it.

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[-] Drito@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 year ago

This is useful for proprietary software.

[-] IverCoder@lemm.ee 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As well as FOSS too. Sandboxing is a security standard that should be followed by every software how open their code may be.

[-] bizdelnick@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago

What is this? A solitaire game?

[-] IverCoder@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This could well be an advanced video editor or an office suite if they take full advantage of the portals API without losing any functionality. Well, they can have the network permission, it would still be safe anyway.

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this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
547 points (94.6% liked)

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Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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