wineboot: Start items in StartUp folder on boot, includes security measures.

[richardvoigt at gmail.com]

On 2/11/07, Misha Koshelev <mk144210 at bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> Thanks for your suggestions. I just posted a new patch on wine-patches
> where I tried to incorporate these and now it does the following (in
> addition to my previous patch which just started items in the StartUp
> folder):
>
> - When wineboot finds a file that it wants to start in the StartUp
> folder, it asks the user whether he wants to run the program. His
> options are: Always, Yes, No (default), and Never.
> - If he selects Yes the program is run, if he select No it is not.
> - If he selects Always or Never, I create a registry key in:
> HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\StartupItems with the full pathname
> of the program and the value "always" or "never." When wineboot sees
> this program in the StartUp folder it checks this key, and if it is
> set it performs the appropriate action.
>
> What do you guys think? If you like the system, it would be pretty easy
> to incorporate this into the run key running as well (which are
> currently just run without any user confirmation)?

This sounds almost perfect.  I think the counterpoint raised by James
Hawkins would be adequately addressed by adding a winecfg option as
follows:

Startup items behavior:
(*) Silently allow             <-- This is "bug-for-bug compatibility"
( ) Ask                            <-- Most computer-savvy folks would want this
( ) Silently block
( ) Block and notify me

Perhaps this should be independently set for each kind of startup item
(startmenu\programs\startup, registry run key, profile settings, etc),
but I think that's not really necessary.

Also, I would suggest that the list of approved start items be stored
outside of winespace, so that malware can't bypass the protection by
setting the key.  Of course, really nasty stuff could still call into
Linux, but that would require some hybrid system that was aware of the
ELF dynamic loader in order to not fall afoul of address space
randomization.

Ultimately I think wine is about more than just running
Windows-compatible programs without the Microsoft tax.  It's about
running those programs without ceding control of your computer to an
untrustworthy party.  We don't want the limitations that Windows
imposes... true bug-for-bug compatibility would mean only being able
to access files on a FAT or NTFS partition, but I don't hear anyone
advocating for that kind of crippling behavior.

>
> Thanks
> Misha
>
> p.s. please please please anyone who is familiar with IShellFolder if
> you could look over those parts and just say yes it looks good that
> would make me feel better. I think it is correct but really an expert's
> opinion would be great.
>
>
>