Qubes Beta 1 has been released (strong desktop security OS)

theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com

15 pointsviraptor3 comments

A lot of detail, not a lot of reasoning. What seems to matter are things like ODSCP (or whatever the ssl check is called), so use Opera, and phishing, so common sense.

You should check her previous works and posts before blaming her for "not a lot of reasoning".

Basically her approach is that 1) secure by design is too hard to achieve 2) isolation is what matters since each component, "secure" or not, in an OS can break. 3) SELinux and other similar systems are too fine grained for a normal user, thus VM per security domain is one solution.

It's a really pratical approach to security, but probably highly effective for the end user.

For more explanations check: http://qubes-os.org/FAQ.html and the architecture document. Reasoning is there.

Regarding OCSP (Online Certificate Status Protocol) - have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxie_Marlinspike#OCSP_Attacks

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