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Xen-Based Secure OS Qubes Hits 1.0
Orome1 writes "Joanna Rutkowska, CEO of Invisible Things Lab, today released version 1.0 of Qubes, a stable and reasonably secure desktop OS. It is the most secure option among the existing desktop operating systems — even more secure than Apple's iOS, which puts each application into its own sandbox and does not count on the user to make security decisions. Qubes will offer users the option of using disposable virtual machines for executing tasks they believe could harm their computer. These VMs will be lightweight, easily and extremely speedily created and booted, and would be just as easy to discard."
First covered back in 2010. See some screenshots of the X11 part in action (and they say displaying clients from multiple "hosts" isn't useful...)
Because the first thing I see is:
Note: Be sure that you use a modern, non-handicapped browser to access the links below (e.g. disable the NoScript and the likes extensions that try to turn your Web Browser essentially into the 90's Mosaic).
Oh goodie...
Think I'll go with this one ;) : ... or you might try to download the ISO via bit torrent:
Contrary to what the article above suggests, Qubes uses its own, custom and very slim GUI virtualization protocol, instead of the bloated and insecure X protocol!
"It is the most secure option among the existing desktop operating systems"
what about OpenBSD?
Yes? What about it?
You know, the headline for all the sec related news should read: "New Secure OS (Not being OpenBSD) Rleased!" or "The Sky is Falling, We'll all be cyber-robbed real soon now (unless you are using OpenBSD)" or "New virus, be very afraid! (OpenBSD users, well.. you're fine)".. ;)
You know it just does not make good press
HTH, HAND.
-RG.
Apparently Qubes can't be installed in VMware Fusion. This occurs with both the default boot mode and the "failsafe" VESA mode. I supposed that does indeed make it the most secure operating system possible.
Is this POSIX compliant? And does the command line support *NIX commands - if there is a command line?
what about OpenBSD?
Or Solaris?
Would just like to point out iOS does in fact give user control over Privacy:
https://p.twimg.com/Avd_bj2CEAAokCD.jpg
The same pop-up occurs when an application wants to access your photo's, location, etc.
And you can also set up Provacy controls for apps in Settings:
http://i.imgur.com/LvImi.jpg
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Actually, it looks somewhat similar to the secure version of Solaris, running different processes in different VMs. I wonder if I have a crappy old machine lying around somewhere that I could test it on.
Blimey, have you checked her out? She has is now my third favourite woman (after my mother and the Queen).
Note: We don't recommend installing Qubes in a virtual machine!
No, I'm not going to say something snarky like "you should have read the system requirements." or some demeaing bullshit that's all to common on Slashdot that also gets mod'ed up.
if I had a machine available I would have done the same thing - hey, that's what we do! jump in, try it out, and have fun
I have a computer that's even more secure.
It has no plugs at all. If you can't power it on. It's forever secure!
Not very useful tho.
Alot like tfa one it sounds like.
Just run it in a VM.
Just run it in a VM.
You seem to have missed the comments further down about it not running in a VM.
what happened to some of the projects on her site? "Red Pill" and others are nothing but broken links. What a shame, some useful tools and documents.
what if she's a spy?
(2010) "Disposable VMs will be very lightweight VMs that can be created and booted in a very short time, say 1s, with a sole purpose of hosting only one application, e.g. a PDF viewer, or a Media Player."
so what exactly is this disposable vm? is it self-contained? can it run non-virtualized? what applications can it run? what application can it not run?
TIA
I've looked through the docs, and can't tell what distro this is based upon.
It's a cool thought, but it feels a little too 'new' and lacking in robustness.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
A JVM is called a virtual machine, but it isn't virtual machine in the same sense as the one provided by Xen. The JVM is a simple bytecode interpreter/compiler. It sort of emulates a machine, but not a complete machine. It runs in user space on top of the native OS and cannot run an OS of its own.
Xen is a hypervisor whose virtual machines emulate a complete system. It doesn't just run the application program, it runs the whole bloody OS. The virtual machine has virtual disks, virtual memory, a virtual processor, even a virtual reset button, Support for this virtualization is built into modern processors, so it occurs at a very low level.
I imagine a sufficiently clever hacker could think of a way to bypass the guest OS and the hypervisor and do wacky things, But it's one hell of a lot harder than breaking out of a JVM sandbox.
Why does it pass true to the break out routine?
Does this visualization better by leaps and bounds. Just need some more polish.
Learn basic coding, dude:
If (insideVM()) {
If(vmHost==exploitableVersion) {
doBreakOutRoutine( );
}
}
It seems to me that QubeOS is little more than a wrapper for your usual kvm machines.
How comes this makes the news on /. ?
Is QubeOS any more interesting than Joanna Rutkowska's previous discoveries like the 100% undetectable rootkit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Pill_%28software%29
Which was actually not even stealth if the rules had allowed to tamper with the machine or saturate the CPU like any serious forensic people would do.
Is that just another hoax to draw attention and ask for a huge sum of money this time again ?
I have lurked Rutkowska's blog and website, i'm pretty sure the "CEO" doesn't actually have any technical skills nor a big team of specialized engineers.
Presenting other people's work at DefCon as your own this year again ? Sure, no shame whatsoever.
Don't you mean Jython? Or was it Scala... :)
The whole idea seems quite ridiculous.
The OS's focus is isolating applications because they may have security issues. That's just a nasty workaround, applications with issues need to be fixed, and that's the end of it. You can try a millon different thing, but coding secure applications will always work.
It will always have less overhead as well, since it's not an aditional VM (how much memory does this use up in order to run, say, leafpad?
Have we really reached a point were bad software is so commonly accepted that we tailor OSs so it's no longer a problem?
Well, if you use KVM, you can pass your processor VMX/SVM flag and it would run another hypervisor on top on your KVM VM
"I wonder if I have a crappy old machine lying around somewhere that I could test it on."
No. You almost surely don't.
I've been fooling around with Qubes for six months now, looking for a good solution to the Bitcoin offline wallet issue. Qubes is perfect - you don't need to be offline, and yet you can manipulate your 'offline' wallet using Armory in a ("Black") Qubes VM with zero network contact; but you can use (secure copy/paste) file transfer to the online component of your wallet in a different VM with network access to send and receive bitcoins.
The thing is, you need some pretty specific hardware to enable all the security features of Qubes: either Intel VT-d, or IOMMU. Effective GPUs are limited as well. And chipsets, of course.
So unless your "crappy old machines" are a hell of a lot better than what's usually laying around, you're going to need to buy some hardware just like I did.
But it's worth it.
I thought it used a different kernel. Where are you seeing that it's a Linux distro?
I can help but feel that something like this would need some form of (D)COM or CORBA for interVM communication. The problem is that AFAIK all such technologies are gead expect for those specific to a particular language.
Solaris zones are not true virtual machines. They often inherit directories from the parent, and they share the same kernel as the global zone.
Fedora has had the "sandbox" command for some years which uses SELinux to set up a disposable sandboxed context for running a program.
Since Fedora 17 there is also a "virt-sandbox" command using LXC or KVM to do a similar job:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/VirtSandbox
It's just made-up crap code written so that the point is clear. Adding as many lines as possible was the point.
The point is that breaking out of VMs is done often enough that it's trivial once an exploit is identified.
Yes, no doubt simplified code compiles smaller and runs faster. Get the point, and stay out of details. Look around yout. It's a DISCUSSION FORUM.
Can't you just run it in a VM? :-)
You are correct about Zones. They're even lighter-weight than paravirtualized VMs, which in turn makes them ideal for some things, and not others. Solaris also has Logical Domains (LDOMs) which are very much like VMs. They see only the hardware that has been mapped into them. If you need something to be visible to multiple LDOMs (like your network interface) you have to have a control LDOM which owns that particular piece of a hardware and virtualizes it for any other LDOMs that want to see it. They're not the easiest thing in the world to set up, but work well (on larger hardware) and are nicely isolated.
Michael J.
Root, God, what is difference?
"even more secure than Apple's iOS"
Wow ... thats the benchmark is it ?
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Xsystems have a great many vunerabilities such as x windowing server and the security model itself is broken, obsolete, etc. as per yesterdays slashdot thread if you bothered to read the links to whats broken and ungrokken in LUX
"It is the most secure option among the existing desktop operating systems"
what about OpenBSD?
As someone who is paranoid enough that all my personal financial online transactions are done on a live cd, I love the consept of OpenBSD. In the past I have installed it on both a pc and a laptop. Not even after, or during, a week long Hunter S Thompsonesque drug and alchohol binge would I consider OpenBSD a desktop os.
Crap code offends me. Sorry, it's a personality flaw.
It's funny because your response was also crappy.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I've read a lot of comparisons here that mention Qube as "sounding just like running things in a VM/container/chroot" ... just fyi, from my reading of their architecture docs (several months ago) the difference is that they've isolated specific userspace processes to run in these lightweight VMs, and defined an API approach for other processes to interact with them. E.g., running the X server in a VM, while X apps can still make all expected calls, without being aware that they're crossing VM boundaries -- and yet under the covers, the isolation is there, and protecting both sides. That's somewhat more than just being able to run the apps you want in a VM.
Iirc, they've even isolated certain kernel processing into separate VMs, e.g. the network stack. But someone not relying on months-old memory, pls check me on that.
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
I really want this. One problem: The storage VM seems to be running Linux, but can you use any filesystem you want, and can you use software RAID?
Oh yeah? Well, your mother wears Army boots!
is their statement "In the future it might also run Windows apps". why would i install an os with that mistake as its goal?
Burned! .. with napalm!
Fine, but you all WISH you had it "going on" like the lady this topic's about & you WISH You were her... period!
* After all - She's out there DOING THINGS in the art & science of computing, + doing well @ them... are you?
APK
P.S.=> On that note? A little "dedication" to my fellow Polish person, in a tune that I *think* describes her abilities, perfectly:
---
ROXETTE - "Dangerous":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFNRh26TPmM
---
(I love the ending - that woman has a HELL OF A VOICE!)
... apk