> If one did wish to use Singularity for nefarious purposes, however, the code is MIT licensed and freely available — using it in that way would only be a crime, not an instance of copyright infringement.<p>Too bad the author picked the MIT license. Had they picked (A)GPL, it would have forced the criminals to distribute a copy of LICENSE.TXT alongside their improved copy of the source code on systems they compromise. Failing this, using it in that way would be both a crime and an instance of copyright infringement.<p>Although, it occurs to me that if they don't give credits to the original author, it's also already a copyright infringement under the MIT.
If I might interject for a moment, you should've recommended the (A)GPLv3.<p>The anti-tivoization clause in Version 3 would allow users to modify and replace the rootkit with their own, more or less malicious version, even if it would otherwise violate copyright law.
It's nice until you get spammed with emails from angry users. I think it happened to the sqlite and other popular open source project authors. Non technical users think they are polluting their computer.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42358470">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42358470</a>
It happened to thttpd<p><a href="https://www.acme.com/software/thttpd/repo.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.acme.com/software/thttpd/repo.html</a>
The person in that thread could explain the situation a lot more better to the non technical users. You could do this:<p>"I don't know what happened to your computer but you seem to be saying someone hacked your computer and installed some software and you found acme.com mentioned on it. This was not done by me. acme.com is open source software that is freely available to anyone. This is the same as if someone installed software on your computer that mentions the google chrome web browser - that would not indicate google had anything to do with that action, since google chrome is freely available too."
This is why our temp files have names like malware_dropper.exe and bitcoin_scam.xls. If anyone sees those they assume it's some virus and don't bother us with them.
> <i>crime and an instance of copyright infringement.</i><p>Well-made distinction; +1.
Thank you for the laugh!
It's probably an old joke, but heard it here first. LOL
They checked with their lawyers first… lol.<p>Pretty sure all laws are null and void in their mind.
HAHAHAHAHAH I genuinely laughed a lot, thank you
> The Ftrace mechanism can be disabled at run time, of course — so Singularity helpfully enables it automatically and blocks any attempts to turn it off.<p>Can a kernel be compiled with Ftrace forced off? If it can be disabled at runtime, I take it it's not mandatory for the kernel to work. And I don't just mean off: I mean striping the Ftrace code path (dead code elimination or whatever).<p>I'm also interested in other measures, like a unified kernel moreover without the ability to load modules but this is not what my question is about. I'd like to know if Ftrace can just be turned off for good at kernel compile time.
Previously discussed at <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46498658">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46498658</a>
Man I just discovered this as a good guide on how to exceed the normal limits on Linux kernel modules.<p>Been working on a derviative which hooks the VFS to allow dynamically remapping file paths on a per process basis so I can force badly behaved apps to load custom TLS certificates (looking at you Bazil builds in nixpkgs).<p>(If anyone knows something which already does this it would save me a lot of yak shaving)
> how to exceed the normal limits on Linux kernel modules.<p>Uh, what limits? I'm not aware of <i>anything</i> that would stop your module, once probed, from reaching around the back of the kernel and futzing around in the internals of another driver/device in a completely unrelated subsystem, or subsystem internals. SoC/SoM vendors <i>love</i> to pull that kind of crap in their BSPs.<p>> hooks the VFS to allow dynamically remapping file paths on a per process basis<p>Instead of messing with kernel VFS internals, you could try:<p>- patching the offending application or package (ideally make the path configurable and contribute that back upstream)<p>- running the application in a mount namespace and bind-mount something over the path<p>- use LD_PRELOAD to wrap fopen/open/openat (I'm pretty sure, ready made solutions for this already exist)
> use LD_PRELOAD to wrap fopen/open/openat (I'm pretty sure, ready made solutions for this already exist)<p>I think I would literally recompile libc to patch fopen/open/openat long before I would even begin to consider writing a kernel module to mess with filesystem paths on a per-process basis.<p>I feel like if you find yourself seriously considering writing a kernel module then you are either contributing to kernel development, or have embarked on an adventure specifically to learn about kernel internals, or have take a <i>very</i> wrong turn.
LD_PRELOAD has nothing to do with the kernel, it's entirely resolved in user space; in this context, it would be used to replace libc functions.<p>> I think I would literally recompile libc to patch fopen/open/openat<p>That's literally the functionality that LD_PRELOAD provides without having to recompile libc.
> Been working on a derviative which hooks the VFS to allow dynamically remapping file paths on a per process basis so I can force badly behaved apps to load custom TLS certificates (looking at you Bazil builds in nixpkgs).<p>chroot or namespaces/containers?
+1 for userns, there's also proot (userspace chroot) and fakechroot (using LD_PRELOAD).
Ah this is so interesting. Rootkits are difficult to implement already, and RE them definitely is another level. Now we have a guidance.
Sorry, I like my rootkits proprietary, closed-source, with a click-through/shrinkwrap EULA.
> Users who feel their computers are too secure can install the Singularity kernel module in order to allow remote code execution, disable security features, and hide files and processes from normal administrative tools.<p>Hah
Since i dont know about Linux Rootkit, isnt this gonna raise the potential of Cyberattack?
as much as I'm all for the freedom of knownledge, given the sorry state of the world, releasing these tools to imbecils is not peak foresight.. mcafee for linux next ha../s
Public Linux rootkits have been around a very very long time. Nothing new here in that regard. Also Linux AV has been around almost as long…<p>This effort is more useful to up and coming defenders and security researchers than attackers by far.
Most such rootkits source code is online and easy to find. So that rootkit finders get better.