full-disclosure - 4 Questions: Latest IE vulnerability, Firefox vs IE security, User vs Admin risk profile, and browsers coded in 100% Managed Verifiable code

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Message-ID: <242a0a8f0603251814q650e0424sb9db6252bb168880@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Sun Mar 26 03:14:31 2006
From: eaton.lists at gmail.com (Brian Eaton)
Subject: 4 Questions: Latest IE vulnerability,
	Firefox vs IE security, User vs Admin risk profile,
	and browsers coded in 100% Managed Verifiable code

On 3/25/06, Dinis Cruz <dinis@...lus.net> wrote:
> 4) Finally, isn't the solution for the creation of secure and
> trustworthy Internet Browsing environments the development of browsers
> written in 100% managed and verifiable code, which execute on a secure
> and very restricted Partially Trusted Environments? (under .Net, Mono or
> Java). This way, the risk of buffer overflows will be very limited, and
> when logic or authorization vulnerabilities are discovered in this
> 'Partially Trusted IE' the 'Secure Partially Trusted environment' will
> limit what the malicious code (i.e. the exploit) can do.

I am less than enthusiastic about most of the desktop java
applications I use.  They are, for the most part, sluggish, memory
gobbling beasts, prone to disintegration if I look at them cross-eyed
or click the mouse too frequently.

Usability problems with java applications are not necessarily due to
managed code, of course, but the idea of creating a full-featured
browser, from scratch, with usability as good as IE and Firefox
strikes me as a fairly tricky project.  What about using the
facilities already provided by the OS to enforce the sandbox?  Rather
than scrapping the existing codebases, start running them with
restricted rights.  Use mandatory access control systems to make sure
the browser doesn't overstep its bounds.

Regards,
Brian