Re: Avoiding information leaks between users and between processes by default? [Was: : [PATCH 1/5] prctl: add PR_ISOLATE_BP process control]

[Alan Cox]

On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 14:14:46 +0100
Pavel Machek <pavel@xxxxxx> wrote:

> On Wed 2018-01-24 20:46:22, Alan Cox wrote:
> > > Anyway, no need to add prctl(), if A can ptrace B and B can ptrace A,
> > > leaking info between them should not be a big deal. You can probably
> > > find existing macros doing neccessary checks.  
> > 
> > Until one of them is security managed so it shouldn't be able to ptrace
> > the other, or (and this is the nasty one) when a process is executing
> > code it wants to protect from the rest of the same process (eg an
> > untrusted jvm, javascript or probably nastiest of all webassembly)
> > 
> > We don't need a prctl for trusted/untrusted IMHO but we do eventually
> > need to think about API's for "this lot is me but I don't trust
> > it" (flatpack, docker, etc) and for what JIT engines need to do.  
> 
> Agreed.
> 
> And yes, JITs are interesting, and given the latest
> rowhammer/sidechannel attacks, something we may want to limit in
> future...
> 
> It sounds nice on paper but is just risky.

I don't think java, javascript, webassembly, (and for some
implementations truetype, pdf, postscript, ... and more) are going away
in a hurry.

Alan