From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1P0W3x-0001N5-Ih for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 28 Sep 2010 05:01:25 -0400 Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=42534 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1P0W3p-0001Hh-8i for grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 28 Sep 2010 05:01:21 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1P0W3l-0001Ap-1a for grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 28 Sep 2010 05:01:17 -0400 Received: from mail-bw0-f41.google.com ([209.85.214.41]:64341) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1P0W3k-0001Ag-QQ; Tue, 28 Sep 2010 05:01:12 -0400 Received: by bwz10 with SMTP id 10so5375618bwz.0 for ; Tue, 28 Sep 2010 02:01:10 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from :user-agent:mime-version:to:cc:subject:references:in-reply-to :x-enigmail-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=jOYg62rOb74REcxVTfzkT+ABI/PIsW/zsLNmJZCRgO8=; b=wqa5R7Php0iqhcKvJLwnGd+sxjKCrvccTIjM1tUgJUZThoVZmHJOgJ8+HY6w1yDj3W /TpHpPZPrL4l3dAGtzBs4RZDC3ItyHxkwV7oneDDylckwtoCPifzGqMxqWcY2LRgO1Pk BV8EfUDtWLbInX7MNPCr8/EyjT9PeuwP33lyc= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:cc:subject :references:in-reply-to:x-enigmail-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; b=PAfP+jdYQyJH36Kfg5/mPebhOk0lQIISuB38Vd9xOlhoCZCgwBovn58NC1hc95jtcp RcrBTwcvRtkvMToNGLrLSONsZlt3wRy2w6vgyxXANob3IcxHpg8huposrRJwL/t+Xe0n wNyF846hkb+id99HQ2Ifb0jvvv84Puez3JdXQ= Received: by 10.204.120.194 with SMTP id e2mr6244648bkr.200.1285664470772; Tue, 28 Sep 2010 02:01:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from debian.yeeloong.phnet (cx-public-docking-1-031.ethz.ch [129.132.149.31]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id g12sm5333528bkb.2.2010.09.28.02.01.07 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Tue, 28 Sep 2010 02:01:08 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4CA1AED1.2010008@gmail.com> Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2010 11:01:05 +0200 From: =?UTF-8?B?VmxhZGltaXIgJ8+GLWNvZGVyL3BoY29kZXInIFNlcmJpbmVua28=?= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux mips64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.12) Gecko/20100913 Icedove/3.0.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: The development of GNU GRUB References: <20100923221923.GA21862@riva.ucam.org> <20100924002753.GE8579@caffeine.csclub.uwaterloo.ca> In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 1.0.1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) Cc: Richard Stallman , Lennart Sorensen Subject: Re: Guidance on conflicts between GNU GRUB and proprietary software X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GNU GRUB List-Id: The development of GNU GRUB List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2010 09:01:21 -0000 On 09/24/2010 04:09 PM, Richard Stallman wrote: > > It appears that, rather than the operating system itself being at fault, > > a number of Windows applications take over a sector in the boot track > > and store bits and pieces of data there. > > I am surprised applications can do that. Isn't that a security hole > in Windows? > > The windows users only relatively recently started discovering the privilege separation as on windows till XP default user had complete root privilegies. From Vista on, microsoft introduced gksudo-like mechanism but most users have a reflex to press "accept" without even reading the message since too many programs have the old habit of doing unnecessary operations requiring root privilegies (like saving configuration system-wide, rather than user-wide). Various backup programs can validly be runned as root. Whereas it's possible that they may have a relatively sane reason to write to MBR gap, I still have to see a such. The ones I've seen use it to avoid restoring Windows to an "unlicensed" ("untatooed") disk. Fortunately this use faded out since many years (when "tatooing" moved to ACPI tables). Other programs install a backdoor in the installer (which itself is run as root). Here the problem is that users accept the backdoors running for DRM purposes. An unrelated but similar example is FreeOTFE which installs a driver which among things allows any unprivelegied user to read and write sectors on the disk. I informed the author (who pretends to be a security expert), but she doesn't see it as a security hole or anything that should be fixed. Although FreeOTFE doesn't write in MBR gap, this example shows that most of windows users and even some "security experts" couldn't care less about security models (but they do care when marketers say "security"-related buzzwords). > As for the decision at hand, I don't have an opinion. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Grub-devel mailing list > Grub-devel@gnu.org > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel > > -- Regards Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko