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Date:      Wed, 9 Mar 2016 11:52:52 -0500
From:      Shawn Webb <shawn.webb@hardenedbsd.org>
To:        Big Lebowski <spankthespam@gmail.com>
Cc:        Piotr Kubaj <pkubaj@anongoth.pl>, freebsd-security <freebsd-security@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Will 11.0-RELEASE include ASLR?
Message-ID:  <20160309165252.GB42303@mutt-hardenedbsd>
In-Reply-To: <CAHcXP%2BdPOu4mgOCrjWx61JaQUQCW47VALQVmh_T_P=DMuZyNDw@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <56E02D95.9020303@anongoth.pl> <CAHcXP%2Bc%2B-PYkn4C8TyGf6Jropot3zsJAiDZFrBvmeT7595fqPA@mail.gmail.com> <20160309162210.GA42303@mutt-hardenedbsd> <CAHcXP%2BdPOu4mgOCrjWx61JaQUQCW47VALQVmh_T_P=DMuZyNDw@mail.gmail.com>

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On Wed, Mar 09, 2016 at 04:39:37PM +0000, Big Lebowski wrote:
> Shawn,
>=20
> Please, note, that I said, these are the things I've heard, and there
> should be people able to answer those better. As such, you should consider
> them to be opinion, not pure facts.
>=20
> On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 4:22 PM, Shawn Webb <shawn.webb@hardenedbsd.org>
> wrote:
>=20
> > (Responding inline)
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 09, 2016 at 04:05:12PM +0000, Big Lebowski wrote:
> > > Hi Piotr,
> > >
> > > There are people who can probably answer it better, but until they do=
, I
> > > can share what I've heard about it: on the FreeBSD side there are few
> > > things that stop ASLR implementation:
> > >
> > > - there's no actual agreement between the influencial developers on
> > wether
> > > ASLR is viable or needed in first place
> >
> > Some FreeBSD developers think ASLR would be a good addition and others
> > don't. We at HardenedBSD believe that ASLR provides a great foundation
> > for further exploit mitigation technologies. We don't hold the belief
> > that ASLR is the "end-all-be-all" of security as some would like you to
> > believe.
> >
>=20
> That's pretty much what I wanted to say.
>=20
>=20
> >
> > > - there was no planning or discussion how to implement ALSR in FreeBS=
D,
> > > Shawn simply started writing the code, and some developers would like=
 to
> > > discuss and plan things first
> >
> > Discussions took place over a period of over two years. I was very
> > cooperative. If you take a look at the two reviews on FreeBSD's
> > Phabricator instance (linked to below), you'll notice that there's a lot
> > of back-and-forth discussion.
> >
>=20
> Discussing patches and designing a feature such as ASLR is not exactly the
> same thing. In the spirit of this, some developers would expect some form
> of academical approach, a whitepaper, and so on, not the reviews
> discussion, and that's what lacking in their opinion.

We provided a whitepaper and went through a few revisions of that, even.

>=20
>=20
> >
> > > - there are doubts expressed in the code reviews about code quality a=
nd
> > > compliance to FreeBSD standards. Some developers dedicated their time=
 to
> > > review the code and provide feedback, there were few cycles of rewrit=
e,
> > > review, rinse, repeat, but if you'd look into the reviews, Shawn clos=
ed
> > > them, and I understand they'd only be considered for inclusion if the=
y'd
> > > meet the code quality standards expected
> >
> > Initial patches did not meet code quality standards. However, those
> > style(9) violations were fixed early on.
> >
> > Even though the patches on Phabricator are closed, they can still be
> > looked at for independent review. However, the code is now old and does
> > not reflect the current implementation in HardenedBSD.
> >
> > We closed the reviews so that we could focus on making HardenedBSD
> > great, not because of the lack of code quality.
> >
> > I'm not sure whether the patches would be considered for inclusion.
> > That's up to FreeBSD to decide. Given that the last patch went months
> > without any input from FreeBSD--input that was promised to be delivered.
> >
>=20
> I dont know C and I am not a security expert, however, the code quality w=
as
> questioned by people who I respect for their achievement in security,
> operating systems and C knowledge, and I can simply rely what I've heard:
> that there are doubts, some people even mentioned actual bugs, so its not
> all about style(9). Yet again, not something I can verify myself, only
> something I've heard and can share.
>=20
> The lack of input is directly caused by my first two points: lack of
> agreement that FreeBSD needs it, and lack of academical style on how
> FreeBSD would like to implement it.

Agreed.

>=20
>=20
> >
> > >
> > > As a side note, one person saying 'ASLR implementation is finished' a=
nd
> > > proper ASLR implementation that's properly tested, functional and not=
 in
> > > fact opening other security issues are two vastly different things, t=
hat
> > > should be approached very carefully.
> >
> > Does "being tested over the period of three or so years through many
> > full package builds, production deployments, and dogfooding" not mean
> > "properly tested?" What does "properly tested" mean to you?
> >
> > The developers at HardenedBSD make it a point to run HardenedBSD on all
> > their hardware--even laptops.
> >
> > HardenedBSD has been available for over two years, so it can be tested
> > by anyone who downloads it and runs tests themselves. If there's a test
> > you'd like me to run, please let me know.
> >
>=20
> Sorry, but I completely disagree here. I dont know the actual numbers, but
> I can safely assume that HardenedBSD user numbers are way smaller than
> FreeBSD, and thus, I would say that amount of dogfooding over so short
> period of time (since ASLR is considered to be completed by you) is nowhe=
re
> close for my taste, to consider it production ready. Moreover, do you have
> any tests results available? Do you have a complete automated test suite
> exposed somwhere? Have you done static code analysis? Have you used fuzze=
rs
> or any similar tools?

When it comes to number of users, sure. We don't have nearly the
visibility FreeBSD enjoys. But that's not a problem I can easily solve.
Since we don't have any tools that call home, we don't even know how
many users we have.

Does a kernel fuzzer even exist for FreeBSD? If so, I'd love to run it
for a whole bunch of things. I'll run it for ASLR, too.

>=20
> Dont get me wrong, I highly appreciate your work in that area, however, I
> would like to see more complete, thorough and cautios approach to such
> complicated thing as computer security.

What can we at HardenedBSD do to make it "more complete, thorough, and
cautious"?

Thanks,

Shawn

>=20
> Cheers,
> BL
>=20
>=20
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Shawn
> >
> > Original Phabricator review: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D473 (warning:
> > huge load time since this review spans around two years).
> >
> > New Phabricator review for a smaller prereq patch:
> > https://reviews.freebsd.org/D3565
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Shawn
> >
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > BL
> > >
> > > On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 2:05 PM, Piotr Kubaj <pkubaj@anongoth.pl> wrot=
e:
> > >
> > > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > > > Hash: SHA256
> > > >
> > > > Shawn Webb has recently announced that ASLR is complete on Hardened=
BSD.
> > > > There are patches ready for FreeBSD to use and it's ready to be shi=
pped
> > > > in FreeBSD. However, for some reason FreeBSD developers do not want=
 to
> > > > ship ASLR in FreeBSD. Why can't it be included at least as non-defa=
ult
> > > > src.conf option and marked as experimental?
> > > >
> > > > FreeBSD is the only OS that matters that doesn't have ASLR.
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> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > freebsd-security@freebsd.org mailing list
> > > > https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-security
> > > > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "
> > freebsd-security-unsubscribe@freebsd.org
> > > > "
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > freebsd-security@freebsd.org mailing list
> > > https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-security
> > > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "
> > freebsd-security-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
> >
> > --
> > Shawn Webb
> > HardenedBSD
> >
> > GPG Key ID:          0x6A84658F52456EEE
> > GPG Key Fingerprint: 2ABA B6BD EF6A F486 BE89  3D9E 6A84 658F 5245 6EEE
> >

--=20
Shawn Webb
HardenedBSD

GPG Key ID:          0x6A84658F52456EEE
GPG Key Fingerprint: 2ABA B6BD EF6A F486 BE89  3D9E 6A84 658F 5245 6EEE

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