← Back to context

Comment by fsflover

2 days ago

This is probably impossible and also not needed. Choose security through compartmentalization (instead of security through correctness that never works), if you really care about security.

Works for me with Qubes OS.

Do you daily drive Qubes? I'd be curious to hear about your experiences. I've been following the project from the sidelines for years, but haven't taken the leap.

Qubes doesn't compartmentalize the image decoder in a web browser from the rest of the renderer, and if you're serving tracking pixels and can exploit image decoding, you can make serious mischief.

  • If you use Qubes correctly, then VM in which you go to untrusted websites is disposable and contains no personal information, so there is no mischief to make.

    • The web page you are visiting contains personal information, and that is where the mischief can be made. All that is required is for the website to incorrectly trust an image, either by not sanitizing a user-uploaded image or by embedding a third party image. Both trust bugs are rampant on the web, and both have caused problems in the past. Adding an improperly vetted image decoder is a sure-fire way to get exploit authors salivating.