[CentOS] Saw this and thought warmly of everyone on the list

[Jim Perrin]

> see points for 12 and 13 to substantiate my previous post....

12. So it's not 'trusted', big deal neither is linux. That doesn't
mean that it doesn't provide security benefit to the people who want
mandatory access controls.

13. Note the nod here to physical security and personnel security.
Selinux adds mandatory access control support to linux. This will help
prevent some script kiddie from exploiting a hole in php code and
using you for a spam proxy. It will not however stop someone from
walking up and ripping out the hard drive to get to your files, or
protect you from an unguarded shell in the event someone walks off
while logged in as root.

> so its not secure and its not trusted and its not going to be B1 and C2
> evaluated and point 16 is a killer,

16. It's not the NSA's job to debug the linux kernel. They did what
every other developer does and patches it to support their own code.
If you don't like this one, you should probably stop using computers
altogether, everyone does this, and its OS agnostic. Hell, for some
environments, you can't even get the source to attempt to debug it.

> point 17 is icing on the cake, (I think SElinux is about 6 feet under by
> now)

17. This one is stale, because the FAQ you're linking to hasn't been
updated since around 2003.  RHEL 4 is very much authorized, and very
much has selinux included, and enabled by default. The second half is
mostly accurate, as selinux does not give added 'acceptability' to the
OS, though it does add to the overall security metric used to judge
system risk.

> so bring on the flames, your gonna have to do really well to justify it
> now.... (lol)

Please refrain from yelling fire in crowded venues, or starting
flamewars on this mailing list.

> And all these points are from the authors of SELinux, so save yourself
> the trouble and disable it...

You're misinterpreting some of this. SELinux is not a silver bullet to
secure everything and be easy to use. It has a limited scope, and a
limited focus. That's the point the 'authors' were making. Lets also
not forget the that 'authors' here are the NSA. They are
professionally paranoid, and are amazingly careful and astute when it
comes to security. Now quit trying to incite a flamewar.

If selinux helps you, then use it. If it doesn't, then don't. No one
is twisting your arm and forcing you at gunpoint to use it.... yet.
The beauty of open source is that it's all about choice. Do what you
want, so long as you're smart enough to do it.



-- 
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
George Orwell