On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 03:12:07PM -0800, Ted Unangst wrote:
> On 1/26/06, Joachim Schipper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I agree with your assessment - but disallowing mounts in securelevel 2
> > fixes the most obvious attack (that anybody with even a little UNIX
>
> no, it fixes nothing. root can alter processes' memory. you gain
> *nothing* by preventing mount.
Yes, and root can do quite a few other nasty things as well. Where did I
say this was something completely new? Where did I say that it fixed the
problem?
It does two things:
1. It makes a single avenue of attack ('the most obvious
attack') impossible.
2. It shuts up the crowd who don't exactly like OpenBSD and/or
don't understand what is at stake here.
Now, 1. is something that is rather useless if there is another attack
vector, as you pointed out, and 2. isn't something OpenBSD does (and
rightly so, I believe). Thus, I can understand why the fix was not
imported.
I understand OpenBSD has taken quite a bit of heat for this decision,
but please understand that I'm not trying to turn up the heat - only
provide a little more information, and now, support.
Joachim
