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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...)
It's worked great for Java... they never have security vulnerabilities... oh wait.
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:
"It is the most secure option among the existing desktop operating systems"
what about OpenBSD?
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!
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?
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"
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.
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.
Does this visualization better by leaps and bounds. Just need some more polish.
User. 'Now that It just 0wnz.', it has to be fun moans a8d groans lube. This can lead area. It is the WAS WHAT GOT ME Save Linux from a DDeper into the
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.
What the fuck are you smoking? Did you even read the blog post? As they say on Wikipedia, "[citation needed]" You can't call something it's own proponent admits isn't ready for prime time, "the most secure option among existing desktop operating systems," because in a sense, it's NOT itself an existing desktop operating system, and the blog post even admits they've had security bugs in their own code, so the notion their new OS is more secure begs the question, how can you know if something is more secure, when it's not even fully finished or fleshed out yet? That would be like saying a new aircraft design IS the fastest aircraft in the world, while it's still being fucking built!
Anyway, this is nothing to be excited about or worked up over. From their website, it looks like this is more than anything else just another Linux-based OS, which means it's probably not especially more secure than Linux itself. Even if they layer security on top, it's still vulnerable to whatever the kernel beneath is, isn't it? Plus it's using X... so it's got Linux on the bottom, X in the middle, and from the screenshots, KDE on top, so how is this not really anything more than Just Another Fscking Distro? Hmm???
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.
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?
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.
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
"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
"Yes, but she speaks polish. have you ever heard polish?" - by blade8086 (183911) on Monday September 03, @07:43PM (#41217559)
Per my subject-line above, I got to practice it "full bore" while I visited family there in 2010 for 2-3 months over a summer...
* Personally - I was surprised I did as well as I did...
(That was after learning it from birth to age 6 (when it was spoken exclusively in my family's home until I was about 10), then, I had to learn English to function in society @ that point, which was elementary schooling then... Capt Kirk & Mr. Spock were my BEST teachers in fact, in that regards!)
I hadn't spoken it regularly for over 40++ yrs. in fact until that summer 2010... glad my parents had me learn it 1st, then English (my brother, a United States Military Field Grade Officer, Major, who has been decorated with the Bronze Star no less, who is 10 yrs. my junior doesn't know a word of it, but by the time HE came "into the world"? As I noted above, my family was becoming "americanized" totally, & English became the primary language used @ home by then - Funniest part is, he knows pretty much EVERY Arabic language though from his time overseas + French (which I barely recall from High School French ages ago & lack of usage regularly)).
APK
P.S.=> It is AMAZINGLY similar to Russian (nouns are pretty much same, verbs differ) & other "slovakian tribe" style languages (it even got me to function SOMEWHAT ok in the Czech Republic, when I visited Prague, but it's closer to Russian language)... apk
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?
is their statement "In the future it might also run Windows apps". why would i install an os with that mistake as its goal?
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