Malware on Wine review

[Chris Robinson]

On Tuesday 24 February 2009 4:54:26 pm Ben Klein wrote:
> "Unsolicited" files will get +x with default mount options on vfat/fat
> partitions, because ALL files on such partitions get +x this way.

You have to mount a partition to get access to its files. A partition normally 
doesn't mount itself, unless you had previously set it up to do so. As such, 
you're actively trying to get the files.. they aren't just given to you 
without warning.

> I would at least like to see Wine respect noexec, if possible. I
> understand concerns about Wine respecting +x, due mainly to CD-based
> installers that may or may not have +x set on the files, but I think
> it would also be the *correct* thing to do.

The (no)exec mount options are for specifying whether the executable bit is 
masked out or not. Filesystems like NTFS/FAT/ISO9660 do not have an executable 
bit (a shortcoming on their part), so it's always assumed to be on; the 
(no)exec options, in turn, control whether or not the the bit gets filtered 
out (ie. it determines whether the files get +x or not). To honor 'noexec' 
means Wine should honor +x.

If a user is trying to execute a program on a CD that's not +x, they mounted 
it wrong (or the CD was made wrong). I mean, assume it was a Linux program 
they were trying to run on a CD instead of a Windows one. If the file doesn't 
have +x, it won't run. There's no reason a Windows program executed with Wine 
should act differently than a Linux program executed directly.