On 2/12/07, James Hawkins truiken@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/11/07, richardvoigt@gmail.com richardvoigt@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/11/07, Misha Koshelev mk144210@bcm.tmc.edu wrote:
Hi everybody,
Thanks for your suggestions. I just posted a new patch on wine-patches where I tried to incorporate these and now it does the following (in addition to my previous patch which just started items in the StartUp folder):
- When wineboot finds a file that it wants to start in the StartUp
folder, it asks the user whether he wants to run the program. His options are: Always, Yes, No (default), and Never.
- If he selects Yes the program is run, if he select No it is not.
- If he selects Always or Never, I create a registry key in:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\StartupItems with the full pathname of the program and the value "always" or "never." When wineboot sees this program in the StartUp folder it checks this key, and if it is set it performs the appropriate action.
What do you guys think? If you like the system, it would be pretty easy to incorporate this into the run key running as well (which are currently just run without any user confirmation)?
This sounds almost perfect. I think the counterpoint raised by James Hawkins would be adequately addressed by adding a winecfg option as follows:
Startup items behavior: (*) Silently allow <-- This is "bug-for-bug compatibility" ( ) Ask <-- Most computer-savvy folks would want this ( ) Silently block ( ) Block and notify me
This is unnecessarily complicated, and i really doubt anything like this would ever make it into the Wine tree.
Perhaps this should be independently set for each kind of startup item (startmenu\programs\startup, registry run key, profile settings, etc), but I think that's not really necessary.
Also, I would suggest that the list of approved start items be stored outside of winespace, so that malware can't bypass the protection by setting the key. Of course, really nasty stuff could still call into Linux, but that would require some hybrid system that was aware of the ELF dynamic loader in order to not fall afoul of address space randomization.
Ultimately I think wine is about more than just running Windows-compatible programs without the Microsoft tax. It's about running those programs without ceding control of your computer to an untrustworthy party. We don't want the limitations that Windows imposes... true bug-for-bug compatibility would mean only being able to access files on a FAT or NTFS partition, but I don't hear anyone advocating for that kind of crippling behavior.
What? Wine has nothing to do with which file system your files reside on.
You advocated that wine aim for working exactly like Windows, no less and no more, rather than deviating in user-configurable ways to enhance the user's control over his own system. Maybe while we're at it, wine should have the bug which allows certain software to prevent screen grabs. No, I think defeating DRM to enable fair use is perfectly reasonable, and there are some bugs which should be fixed. Should wine try to patch remote exploits at the exact same rate as windowsupdate.com? That would be also be required for true bug-for-bug compatibility. After all, someone properly authorized might be using that backdoor to reboot their webfarm remotely -- not!
There are things that are wrong in a theoretical sense (i.e. the Pentium floating-point bug), or misclassification of Unicode characters, which some programs might reasonably depend on. And then there are things that are wrong from a practical engineering perspective, like software taking away the user's choice to not run it, which the mere fact that a program depends on it makes it malware.
Asking if you want to run every file set for startup in wineboot every single time is crippling behavior, not to mention annoying. UAC anyone? If you're so worried about this "malware", create a reduced privileges account just for Wine.
That's the point of a "remember my choice" or "Yes/No/Always/Never" option on the prompt which appears when the winecfg option is ask...
Reduced privileges do little or nothing to prevent network abuse (open spam relay and the like).
Thanks Misha
p.s. please please please anyone who is familiar with IShellFolder if you could look over those parts and just say yes it looks good that would make me feel better. I think it is correct but really an expert's opinion would be great.
-- James Hawkins