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by opnitro 864 days ago
This is a _very_ qualified statement. The default OpenBSD install enables an extremely small amount of services by default, which is why they can claim that. I'm not saying that's wrong, or a bad idea, but obviously a platform that doesn't enable many network services is going to have a small amount of remote holes.

this is on top of a lot of very careful programming and interesting security research, and this post isn't meant to take anything away from the OpenBSD devs.
1 comments
wolverine876 864 days ago
> The default OpenBSD install enables an extremely small amount of services by default, which is why they can claim that.

Probably this issue has been hashed out many times over the decades, but arguably the security gain isn't a fortunate or incidental benefit of minimizing default enabled services, nor a cheat like weighted dice, it's a very real benefit resulting from an effective, intentional technique. Maybe other OSes should do the same, and then everyone would have that benefit.

The other OSes have other priorities, and that's fine. Embrace that. Yes, most users (and developers) don't want to deal with the compatibility issues. But when you say OpenBSD has few default security holes because they have few default services, that's a complement.

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tptacek 864 days ago
SEL4 is proven correct. Formally verified. No security holes in the default install, of any sort, ever. I mean, it doesn't do anything. But it has no security holes, with almost mathematical certainty.
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opnitro 863 days ago
As a huge believer in formal methods, this statement should _also_ be tempered somewhat. Formal proof is a great technique, but it's incredibly dependent on getting your specs right, which is very hard to do.

As an example, CompCERT is a formally verified C compiler, and it's had a couple bugs as a result of their specification of the underlying hardware being wrong.

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tptacek 863 days ago
I know, I know, I'm mostly being silly about SEL4. Also, obviously, OpenBSD does a lot more than SEL4. :)
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wolverine876 864 days ago
Yeah, I get it, and obviously the question is where people want a balance. OpenBSD does more than nothing, less than SELinux-secured Linux, which does less than some other things.

Also, doesn't SEL4 have widespread, practical application? IIRC as the microkernal (maybe under Minix?) on the baseband hardware on cell phones? Maybe I'm confusing it with something else.

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opnitro 863 days ago
Sure, wasn't meant as a slight in any way. For certain use cases, that's a great set of defaults! It's very good to have an OS that makes those choices. Needing to explicitly opting into things that raise your exposed attack surface is really really nice!
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