Re: [gentoo-hardened] hardened workstation - is that worth it?

[Jan Klod]

On Tuesday 25 November 2008 22:14:47 RB wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 14:58, Jan Klod <janklodvan@×××××.com> wrote:
> > Actually, that sound like there is practically no way to keep networked
> > workstation really secure.
>
> That's kind of outside the realm of this discussion.  The difference
> between the attack surface of a network interface versus that of a
> local application is several orders of magnitude.
Gives nothing, if all ways outside (network, no plaintext filesystems!) are 
closed and sessions are secure (locked, if not legitimately operated in AND 
enough bug-free). 
Yes, but who is going to work on disconnected system? 
Adding some kind of proxy with firewall opens up a possibility of malicious 
transfer to some trusted outside service, which can theoretically be 
compromised by then.
Also I didn't count some wild tricks with operating hardware... But that 
doesn't count, as RAM can be partially read by coldboot att.

> > As a conclusion of what I have read this far I can state: hardened OS is
> > useless for non-server. Would that be too much? Well, I think, in a
> > "black and white" no. (later is a discussion of what is better: to have 3
> > holes or 300)
>
> The problem, as I see it, is that you haven't defined your problem
> scope.
My problem is stupidly simple: I just want a safe (well, as safe as possible) 
way to exchange my mails. If I leave my physical hardware to be "as safe as 
possible", outside channel to mailserver remains (and can then once become a 
tunnel for other information).

> Taking "extra precautions" is nice, but unless you [even
> broadly] classify what you consider a viable threat, you're not going
> to gain much ground.  My advice would be to sit back and try to define
> what you're defending against.
Anything, that would allow to leak information through network or wipe local 
files, which is not an exact list of things, of course. I would appreciate, 
if someone throws in a link(s) to where people show / discuss ways it could 
be done, even if Linux user is careful (but not "paranoid") about how he uses 
the system.

> There are measures you can take, but
> blindly applying security policies is more likely to end up with a
> broken system than a secure one.
Sure.