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Comment by pibaker | Hacker News Reader

I was expecting a more sophisticated attack and then I scrolled down…

> Omarchy configured its default user as a member of the Linux docker group.

What the fuck? Docker makes it VERY, VERY clear this is unsafe. Feel free to verify the documentation.

https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/linux-postinstall/

Why would you want to make this the default for your users, without even telling them? Did someone configured his own system to work this way and decided it is a good idea to ship it as a part of an "opinionated" distro??? Makes you wonder how much other crap is there.

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> Did someone configured his own system to work this way and decided it is a good idea to ship it as a part of an "opinionated" distro???

Isn't that the entire selling point of Omarchy?

There is a major difference between uploading your dotfiles to github and shipping it as a mass-marketed distro.

At the very least they could have documented this sort of security trade-off if it actually is an intentional choice.

Default configuration or not, I also imagine the first thing people using docker do is to add themselves to the docker group via sudo.

If you are security-conscious, you shouldn’t be using docker anyway.

If you are adding yourself to the docker group, you have presumably read the documentation and its warnings. Does an Omarchy user know the distro has made the decision on their behave?

TFA spells out why this is wrong better than I could.

> There is another important aspect of this configuration. It was opt-out, not opt-in. A user did not have to actually use Docker. The security tradeoff was made for them, applied to the default account, and the tradeoff was not explained to the user.

> Security-sensitive defaults matter precisely because many users reasonably assume that the operating system defaults to secure and will inform or prompt them to opt-in to less secure settings.

I am not disagreeing at all. Nor am I trying to claim this behavior is safe.

I’m just pointing out the level-set that I’m sure the first time someone installs docker and tries to use it, chances are they are just going to install themselves in the docker group without considering the impact and continue on their day.

I have passwordless sudo anyway. XKCD knows why the password is pointless.

I don't use Omarchy, nor would I, but I think that "VERY, VERY" is a little hyperbolic, no? It's a simple `admonish-yellow` warning box that says something vague about root-level privileges and wants me to read more about what this actually means. I would wager that a large amount of people scroll past that with no second thought because it really doesn't come off as that bad. I know I configure most, if not all, of my systems this way. Many people probably don't actually understand the implications of what they are doing, and perhaps the Docker team should actually put a little bit more effort into scaring users off.

Perhaps Omarchy shouldn't have shipped this by default, but the whole point of the system is to be DHH's personal computer just the way he likes it (to include not 1, but 2 shortcuts to Twitter!) - all his products are that way and largely the reason why I don't ever think I could use one long term.

I didn't know that was unsafe.

Well, it's not unsafe because anyone who can exploit it has already fully compromised my PC. It rather involved being on the other side of this airtight hatchway. But I didn't know that putting an actually locked down account in the docker group was unsafe.

Because it's convenient, and the security of this doesn't matter for desktop usage.

lol. people will vote you and not realize the irony.

just look at all the comments "this is a fair and common mistake" that are not being ironic.

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