From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org>
To: Matthias Dahl <ml_emacs-lists@binary-island.eu>
Cc: Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: security of the emacs package system, elpa, melpa and marmalade
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 16:10:33 +0900 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87a9iy2106.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <5243F828.6060901@binary-island.eu>
Matthias Dahl writes:
> > Then your model of security is inadequate. Software is *inherently*
> > insecure.
>
> Agreed. But if someone says there are security leaks all over the
> place,
I didn't read Stefan as saying "leaks", I read him as saying "Emacs is
not designed to be your security nanny."
> that is a different story. This implies those are tolerated for
> various reasons.
Well, sure. A concrete block is inherently more secure against an
earthquake than a building. That doesn't mean we should replace the
latter with the former.
> But they do exist and should be fixed, nevertheless.
And they are fixed, frequently. For example, "safe" and "risky" local
variables.
> Agreed. But this doesn't imply that the user should be powerless against
> each and every plugin he installs. One can assume that the Emacs code
> base does not contain any malicious code and is thus "secure" at least
> in this regard.
I gather you haven't read Ken Thompson's ACM address recently.
> Right now there is absolutely nothing stopping a hacked plugin to do
> just about anything until the community or the user somehow notices
> this.
Sure. But the problem of making a sandbox is very hard. Python gave
up. Maybe the Emacs people are smarter, but the Python developers
aren't dumb.
> And what would you suggest in terms of ELPA / Marmalade and MELPA and
> the package system in general based on this...?
If you care, don't use them. On my exposed system, I don't install
any XEmacs packages that I don't absolutely need.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2013-09-27 7:10 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 44+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2013-09-23 7:30 security of the emacs package system, elpa, melpa and marmalade Matthias Dahl
2013-09-23 14:17 ` Stefan Monnier
2013-09-25 8:11 ` Matthias Dahl
2013-09-25 17:00 ` Stefan Monnier
2013-09-25 18:31 ` Matthias Dahl
2013-09-25 22:42 ` Bastien
2013-09-26 9:02 ` Matthias Dahl
2013-09-27 14:02 ` Bastien
2013-09-27 14:17 ` Matthias Dahl
2013-09-27 14:19 ` Bastien
2013-09-27 18:29 ` Matthias Dahl
2013-09-26 1:09 ` Stefan Monnier
2013-09-26 9:02 ` Matthias Dahl
2013-09-26 9:21 ` Óscar Fuentes
2013-09-26 14:41 ` Stefan Monnier
2013-09-27 14:17 ` Matthias Dahl
2013-09-27 15:47 ` Stefan Monnier
2013-09-28 14:15 ` Richard Stallman
2013-09-30 15:12 ` Matthias Dahl
2013-09-30 21:11 ` Richard Stallman
2013-09-30 15:31 ` Matthias Dahl
2013-09-26 1:12 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2013-09-26 9:02 ` Matthias Dahl
2013-09-27 7:10 ` Stephen J. Turnbull [this message]
2013-09-27 14:18 ` Matthias Dahl
2013-09-27 17:31 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2013-09-30 15:25 ` Matthias Dahl
2013-10-01 2:19 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2013-09-27 20:12 ` chad
2013-09-26 9:31 ` Andreas Röhler
2013-09-26 16:25 ` Richard Stallman
2013-09-27 14:18 ` Matthias Dahl
2013-09-27 15:04 ` Óscar Fuentes
2014-09-13 17:57 ` Thomas Koch
2013-09-29 10:12 ` Ted Zlatanov
2013-09-29 9:53 ` Ted Zlatanov
2013-09-29 17:49 ` Daiki Ueno
2013-09-29 18:18 ` Ted Zlatanov
2013-09-30 13:25 ` Ted Zlatanov
2013-09-30 14:50 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2013-09-30 15:10 ` Matthias Dahl
2013-09-30 17:18 ` Ted Zlatanov
2013-10-01 14:03 ` Matthias Dahl
2013-10-02 2:45 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
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