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N.E.P.T.R
I’m the Never Ending Pie Throwing Robot, aka NEPTR.
Linux enthusiast, programmer, and privacy advocate. I’m nearly done with an IT Security degree.
TL;DR I am a nerd.
- 2 Posts
- 272 Comments
N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zoneto
Linux@lemmy.ml•Chrome/Chromium Experimenting With Flatpak PackagingEnglish
2·2 days agoFlatpak does block userns. Apps on Android don’t get unprivileged user namespaces, and Chromium is at its strongest on Android. So I have to assume there is some way of making it secure inside an app sandbox.
N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zoneto
linuxmemes@lemmy.world•Just found this collage I made years ago, but I have no idea whyEnglish
61·8 days agoHe apologized IIRC. He has many other toxic beliefs, a quick web search will show that. It is good that he is no longer part of the greater linux community.
N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zoneto
linuxmemes@lemmy.world•Avoid this very common mistakeEnglish
2·13 days agoThings sandboxed by Firejail share the same host kernel. Therefore, kernel vulnerabilities could allow for privilege escalation.
Firejail itself is a security-hole. It is a massive root SetUID binary which can and has been used for privilege escalation. I avoid it entirely. Unprivileged sandboxes are better, but lack the built-in profiles provided by Firejail.
If I was trying to sandbox malware, I would use sydbox. It is memory safe (unlike Firejail or Bubblewrap), unprivileged (unlike Firejail), secure sandbox by default (unlike Bubblewrap), extensively uses all relevant Linux security features/modules (more than any other), and actually helps to stop LPE by re-implementing or denying dangerous syscalls like in the case of many of the recent vulnerabilities. Biggest caveat is that it’s not for beginners, even though it abstracts a lot of the complexity. I’d also neverbrun malware in just a sandbox, but use that alongside a proper VM.
TL;DR No sandbox will save you from good malware. Firejail might be enough for script kiddies, but could make your system more vulnerable to privilege escalation attacks. Avoid installing things you don’t need.
N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zoneto
linuxmemes@lemmy.world•Avoid this very common mistakeEnglish
3·14 days agoYou don’t need to say the words “sandboxed” or “isolated” to say effectively the same thing. Your goal with distrobox was to keep the AUR malware separate from your normal system, no?
Security through obscurity is not security. The malware can do the same data exfiltration regardless of root access because the AUR malware has been about stealing secrets in user-readable directories. Setting a custom home for distrobox does not disallow access to the normal one.
Say for example that your default user home is /home/user and you set the distrobox home to /tmp/home
If you run
ls $HOMEinside distrobox it will list files in /tmp/home, but just as easily you could runls /home/$USERand it would list in your default home. Or alternatively just use the find command and steal secrets without targeting the user home.This is because changing the user home through distrobox doesn’t do anything about preventing directory traversal to your default home.
If your goal is to create a different environment and you don’t care that it won’t stop malware, use Incus or Podman directly. Distrobox is the wrong choice.
My point was simple: when dealing with malware, distrobox is not an effective method of creating a “different environment” because that is antithetical to its stated goals.
You can do whatever you want, I am not here to police your choice on your personal system. I only take issue with recommending this strategy to others.
N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zoneto
linuxmemes@lemmy.world•Avoid this very common mistakeEnglish
7·14 days agoDistrobox is not an isolated environment, it is quite the opposite. They say so themselves on their page:
Security implications
Isolation and sandboxing are not the main aims of the project, on the contrary it aims to tightly integrate the container with the host. The container will have complete access to your home, pen drive, and so on, so do not expect it to be highly sandboxed like a plain
docker/podmancontainer or a Flatpak.I would argue that Docker isn’t a good way to stop malware either, since it is highly vulnerable to sandbox escape leveraging the shared host-guest kernel, like the many of LPEs that have been found in the last few months (example using copy-fail).
Docker is not a secure sandbox, Podman is not a secure sandbox, Flatpak is not a secure sandbox. Use a VM, or better yet, don’t use the AUR.
N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zoneto
Linux@lemmy.ml•Is there a reason to pick Fedora over Ubuntu?English
4·1 month agoAvoid Fedora Flatpaks (their repo, not Flathub) because of broken apps. OBS got pissed at them a while back for user reporting bugs that were only present in the downstream repackaging by Fedora. Broken af.
N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zoneto
Linux@programming.dev•OpenMandriva: Statement regarding attempted distribution sabotageEnglish
5·2 months agoThat second link gave me cancer just reading some of that shit.
Pretty sure Asahi fixed that problem already.
Maybe a MacBook M3 or 4 with the hopes that asahi gets support in the future? More RAM means much more money. I suggested a MacBook because OP like Mac.
For Mac, go with a Mac Book Neo.
N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zoneto
Linux@lemmy.ml•Devuan + I3(Picom) or Void Linux + Niri (DMS)English
6·3 months agoNo, but Sway is basically a drop in replacement.
N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zoneto
linuxmemes@lemmy.world•War, climate among high priority topics at Davos meetingEnglish
5·3 months agoTRUEEEEE
N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zoneto
linuxmemes@lemmy.world•War, climate among high priority topics at Davos meetingEnglish
39·3 months agoI need me some gay desktop environments!
N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zoneto
Linux@lemmy.ml•What reasons do people have for disliking SELinux?English
8·3 months agoPlain and simple, with a supply chain attack.
N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zoneto
Linux@lemmy.ml•Systemd v261-rc1 is out with the 'birth date field'English
2·3 months agoIt doesn’t use systemd, nor do they seem to have plans to add age attestation.

I recommend this Lenspect on Linux. It uses VirusTotal API to scan files you select. It is available on Flathub with minimal permissions (basically just network permission to talk to VirusTotal).