Comment by zorrolovsky | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zorrolovsky | Hacker News Reader

The overarching assumption of this article is that OS sandboxing is a 'must requirement'.

I would challenge the author to explain why is the extra layer of sandboxing a must requirement. Do we know the size of the problem? As in... how many known websites run malicious scripts with real intent to do harm, and how many sites achieve that goal?. Do we know how many users got hacked because the lack of sandboxing in linux when doing typical web browsing?

My view is that the article blows the problem out of proportion. Security relies to a great extent on user behaviour.

User A visits known domains only, and opens emails from known senders only. They only share card and personal details with known and trusted parties. They only install the strictly necessary apps and from known devs only.

User B visits any site regardless of domain. He shares email, phone number and card data at the earliest chance (ie when trying to buy illegal drugs from a clearnet shady store). He installs dozens of apps, often from unknown parties.

Regardless of OS, browser and other context, user A is going to be safe most of the time and it's very rare that they in serious trouble. User B is an accident waiting to happen...

If the above is true, maybe we don't need a technical solution like OS sandboxing. It would be more effective to create a standard for all browsers where the first screen you see is a big message saying: "Welcome to your 3 second online tutorial: Visit known websites where possible. Don't share your real personal details unless strictly necessary. Share details with known and trusted parties only. In case of doubt, don't trust the other party."

> Security relies to a great extent on user behaviour.

User behavior is unreliable. We're moving from passwords to passcodes because of how poorly we're picking and using passwords.

> User A visits known domains only, and opens emails from known senders only. They only share card and personal details with known and trusted parties. They only install the strictly necessary apps and from known devs only.

It's not enough these days. Known senders can be compromised and send spoofed messages. Supposedly trusted parties have data breaches. Supply chain attacks target known devs, like SolarWinds.

> user A is going to be safe most of the time and it's very rare that they in serious trouble.

Security is about adapting to emerging threats. Threats that were rare before become widespread, especially if they work. Based on what I've seen it's already happening.

Sandboxing and capabilities seem like a step in a right direction. In any case, on a machine and an OS that you own and can modify, you could disable it if you desire. Just like you could disable a firewall.

> It would be more effective to create a standard for all browsers where the first screen you see is a big message saying: "Welcome to your 3 second online tutorial [...]"

If all that it took to train users about online safety was a brief pop-up, we wouldn't have security problems. Yet here we are.

It would have the same effectiveness as cookie banners, consent pop-ups, terms-of-service checkboxes, and are-you-over-18 buttons. None for the users, but someone will keep their hands clean.

Being careful sort of works, until the New York Times serves malvertising from an ad network: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11296252

"being careful" in my view includes blocking ads, reducing unnecessary remote connections to servers and not running unnecessary code. You can't avoid everything, but I think you can get by pretty well being careful. That does mean being more careful about doing things most people don't consider very risky though.

The OS may or may not be involved, but I view systematic ad blocking as a layer of sandboxing, because the user isn't in the loop.

Most people barely have any idea they run any code and what in general code means.

Seeing questions like - I was traveling and have a huge bill on internet traffic, I wasn't downloading any movies just watched them online, why you charge me? - gives me personally good portion of understanding that users can't be relied on and need accoring guidance.

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