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Re: elementary's path forward for application containment and security.

 

Yes, I can definitely see how much this would expand Contractor's scope, but it is possible that we could engage with the GNOME community to work on Contractor, since it does not seem like Lennart Poettering has begun the portals work.

Content Hub seems to be already developed, but its API is QML, so a GObject wrapper is probably necessary (maybe in Granite?).

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Cameron Norman

El Tue, 18 de Mar 2014 a las 6:39 PM, Daniel Foré <daniel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> escribió:
Hey Cameron,

I've been thinking about app containment too and I know I feel better on iOS that apps have to ask my permission to use things like location services.

I think it would be worth looking at the solutions from both Canonical and GNOME first before we go building our own solution. Cheers,

Daniel Foré
elementaryos.org


On Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 6:36 PM, Cameron Norman <camerontnorman@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello all,

I recently have taken an interest in some of the containment and security features being developed for Ubuntu touch, as well as Lennart Poettering's plans for containment on GNOME.

One of the recurring aspects that I see is a "Content Hub" (Ubuntu) or "application Portals" (GNOME) system. Both of these have remarkable similarity (in concept) to elementary's Contractor. Although many of you most likely did not foresee Contractor's role in security when it was created, it undoubtedly does have one. By delegating out responsibilities (such as, say, printing), Contractor allows for the removal of privileges from an application. If all applications are using the print contract, there is no need for those applications to have the capability to use the printer.

By extending Contractor's scope (or moving to another service) further containment, as well as better features, is possible. Specifically, returning data, instead of handing them off, will allow for increased consolidation of privileges.

The open and save GTK file dialogs are great example. If apps use contracts to perform these functions, they do not need to be given the privilege of directly reading or writing to the user's documents, pictures, emails, etc.

Another good example is retrieving a profile photo. Instead of having every social media app be able to directly access the webcam, they could ask Contractor for a photo, and contractor could give the webcam option.

These are the changes/additions that I think could make this possible:
 * returning data instead of just handing it off
 * ability to call a contract by name (e.g. "Print" or "OpenFile")
* passing / returning more types of data: not just files, but also strings, booleans, or URLs

Before I go into detail about how I have been thinking about exposing this functionality, I would like to hear all of your thoughts about the merit of these changes, and if any of you would like to develop these things with me (heads up: I suck at programming :).

Lennart Poettering's presentation of portals at GUADEC 2013, starting at 35:00.

Ubuntu Mobile's "Content Hub".

Thank you very much for reading,
--
Cameron Norman



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