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Re: Debian two-factor auth, GSoC?



On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 11:49:35PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> writes:
> > On 04/12/2013 03:25 AM, Tollef Fog Heen wrote:

> >> The Yubikey neo can run the java applet thingies, it seems, so it can
> >> act as a GPG token too.

> > Please, please, please ... no java!!!  That's a security nightmare. I
> > think we'd be less safe with than without it.

> You do realize that most of the Java vulnerabilities are vulnerabilities
> in the sandboxing model and therefore are only particularly interesting
> when you're downloading random untrustsed Java programs from the Internet
> and running them in the sandbox in your web browser, right?

> Those aren't flaws in the *language*.

They aren't, but the security model for managing java applets in your
browser is effectively a boolean: "yes, I want to allow java applets in my
browser", vs. "no, the Internet is dark and full of terrors, keep that off my
system".

There may be third-party plugins that allow you to manage your browser's
policy in a more fine-grained manner, but unless those are shipped in Debian
and we want to make enabling them an explicit part of the instructions for
use of this proposed system (... or implicit, by making such a tool a
dependency of the Java plugin package itself!), I think it's a very bad idea
for Debian to get entangled with any such implementation.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com                                     vorlon@debian.org

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