[CLUE-Tech] The NSA's version of Linux...

[Nate Duehr]

Tony M. wrote:
> Damn, everyones got a distro now.
> 
> http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/index.cfm

It's been out for a couple of years now, pretty sure.  Actually it's 
gotten fairly popular with the severely security-paranoid, as it adds 
incredible amounts of ACL's to everything the box does.

How one would ever be able to manage that many layers of access 
effectively without a Federal mandate and 20 dedicated staffers is 
beyond me though -- it truly seems like one of those times where 
additional complexity would probably lead ultimately to LESS security 
than if one simply locked the vast majority of users out of the box that 
didn't have a need to be there.

Some of the patches for securely handling memory and other stuff, are 
more useful IMHO, and probably account for the major reason many people 
use the patchset on public servers.

It's an interesting testbed for various heavy-hitter security theories. 
    I don't think the final results from the theory, test, repeat cycle 
are in yet on it though.  ;-)

And reading the conspiracy theories about backdoors in the software are 
always good for their entertainment value, too.  (GRIN)

--
Nate Duehr, nate at natetech.com