Talking Smack for Tizen security [LWN.net]

Talking Smack for Tizen security

Posted Jun 6, 2013 21:13 UTC (Thu) by ware (guest, #83607)
In reply to: Talking Smack for Tizen security by Method
Parent article: Talking Smack for Tizen security

I don't believe anyone in the presentation or this article discussed SE Android so I don't know why you're bringing up an experimental MAC implementation usable only for a specific Linux solution into a discussion about a general purpose Linux platform focused on many different product verticals.

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Talking Smack for Tizen security

Posted Jun 6, 2013 21:44 UTC (Thu) by Method (guest, #26150) [Link] (3 responses)

Err. The article is about Tizen, a mobile platform, not a general purpose computing platform. How is it inappropriate to compare it to SE Android, a mobile platform?

Talking Smack for Tizen security

Posted Jun 6, 2013 21:57 UTC (Thu) by Method (guest, #26150) [Link]

And you never explained:

"Very true. However, much of the previous complexity now exists in the userspace components."

The main difference with SELinux on Android is that Zygote has to set a label for new apps that it runs, because it does not fork/execve() as an optimization. Interestingly enough SMACK has _always required a helper app to set a new label on a new processes_, moving much of the complexity into userspace components.

Oops.

Still not seeing why this is better than the alternative. Can you please explain?

Talking Smack for Tizen security

Posted Jun 6, 2013 22:03 UTC (Thu) by ware (guest, #83607) [Link] (1 responses)

Tizen has a mobile profile yes but it is not a mobile platform in the sense Android is. Additionally SE Android is targeted at...Android. Surprise! Tizen couldn't use it.

Talking Smack for Tizen security

Posted Jun 6, 2013 22:27 UTC (Thu) by Method (guest, #26150) [Link]

You still haven't explained the comment above.

Tizen *could* use SELinux, and would likely be able to have a comparable policy to SELinux on Android.