Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 5th Mar 2008 09:43 UTC, submitted by diegocg
"OpenSolaris has launched a new project, Flexible Mandatory Access Control, to integrate the Flask/TE security scheme into their OS. This is the same underlying model implemented by SELinux, and follows other cross-platform Flask/TE integration projects such as SEDarwin and SEBSD. This is very exciting in terms of establishing compatible security across operating systems, particularly for Mandatory Access Control, which has traditionally been narrowly focused and generally incompatible. With FMAC, we're closer to seeing truly ubiquitous, cross-platform MAC security."
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Member since:2006-05-15
Those performance numbers came from a developer who made a patch that reduces it down to 1% and 11% (x86 and SH respectively) (http://marc.info/?l=selinux&m=118906566911337&w=2). The patch and those numbers were in the very same email so the poster knew of the effort to address it. Linux 2.6.24 has those patches so the performance issue is now addressed. This specific issue was only on file read/write revalidation.
Edited 2008-03-05 15:29 UTC
RE[6]: Trusted Solaris?
by sbergman27 on Wed 5th Mar 2008 15:38
in reply to "RE[5]: Trusted Solaris?"
Member since:2005-07-24
The patch and those numbers were in the very same email so the poster knew of the effort to address it. Linux 2.6.24 has those patches so the performance issue is now addressed.
Which is why I mentioned that things were supposed to be better in 2.6.24 in my post. Why so defensive? Why is it that one cannot point out problems, costs, and limitations of SELinux without drawing such ire?
Anyway, I'll also point out that no current production distro has these patches, and that RHEL will likely not have them for about a year.
The Fedora Core 5 SELinux FAQ (the latest available) claims a 7% penalty overall (presumably for x86) but notes that the benchmark was old and that the overhead had probably increased due to changes in networking code. It is fair to say that as of now, and stretching back the last few years, SELinux exacts, and has exacted, a significant performance penalty. And that's not even considering the fact that when I log into my Fedora 8 desktop with SELinux enabled, the 3rd largest consumer of memory on the system is sealert.
I wish SELinux advocates would be a little more candid about the true costs of SELinux, rather than admitting to issues only after there is a fix available.
Edited 2008-03-05 15:49 UTC
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 20:46 UTC
"And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 17:32 UTC
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.More News »
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Member since:
2005-07-06
woh thanks i had never heard that but i'll take your word for it. that is a pretty bad performance hit. Personally i'll still deal with it cause i want some security infrastructure to get adopted. Open source has way, way too many programs on a machine. I mean look at debians repo's you got 20,000 different applications. That is ALOT of security bugs waiting to be found or already found and being exploited. There needs to be a wrapper in the middle to protect the machine from poor code. Weather it be Selinux or another type of MAC system, or stack protection I dont know or care, but there needs to be something between poor code and free reign of a machine. for now SElinux appears to be the one with the most active development and adoption.