[Tails-dev] SELinux & AppArmor

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Author: Stephen Stewart
Date:  
To: tails-dev
Subject: [Tails-dev] SELinux & AppArmor
The NSA's SELinux or Novell's AppArmor, both of which are implemented as Linux Security Modules (LSM) are compiled into the Linux kernel. It seems LSMs are mutually exclusive. Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux use SELinux, Ubuntu and SuSE use AppArmor.

"Because LSM is compiled and enabled in the kernel, its symbols are exported. Thus, every rootkit and every backdoor writer will have every hook he ever wanted in the kernel. This will allow for a new generation of rootkits and backdoors that will be almost impossible to detect."

—Brad Spengler

http://www.grsecurity.net/lsm.php

Novell, vendor of Suse Linux and AppArmor, makes devices certified by the NSA and interoperable with devices designed by the NSA. So, Novell is an NSA corporate partner. Peter Boucher, an engineering security expert, is Novell's liaison to the National Security Agency.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/peterboucher

By the way, Ron Guta, CEO of Tenable Network Security, vendors of the leading security security vulnerability scanner, Nessus, is a former NSA analyst who has turned Nessus from an open source product into a proprietary product.

We now know sites validated as secure by Nessus are actually compromised by the NSA, so the value of Nessus is questionable. Software in the Public Interest has forked the open source version of Nessus under the name OpenVAS.

http://www.spi-inc.org/projects/openvas/