LWN.net Weekly Edition for September 29, 2005

The Grumpy Editor's Guide to Personal Finance Managers, Part 2

Personal finance managers are complex applications, though it is only recently that finance applications available under free licenses have reached anything near the capabilities of the proprietary alternatives. In the first part of this series, your editor introduced the three packages under review (GnuCash, Grisbi, and KMyMoney) and covered the basic tasks of setting up accounts and entering transactions. A good personal finance manager can do more than that, however. So this article, the second and final part of this series, looks at a few advanced features.

Reports

Any spreadsheet can compute the balance of a banking account and let you know just when that account became overdrawn. One of the useful things a personal finance manager can do is to generate reports which provide a more complete picture of what is happening with one's money. Such reports can prove most useful at those animated dinner-table discussions on why the accounts are overdrawn yet again. The financial situation may be disastrous, but at least you have a nice pie chart explaining the situation.

For those who do need pie charts, GnuCash is currently the only viable option. This program offers a wide set of reports in both tabular and graphical formats, with a high degree of configurability. Unlike account registers, reports are displayed in the GnuCash main window, so only one can be viewed at once. Reports are persistent across sessions, so one need not worry about having to repeat a lengthy series of customizations.

GnuCash can export reports to HTML files, nice for posting a group's finances on the web. HTML export only seems to work for the tabular reports, however; the others yield a blank page. There is a "stylesheet" feature which affects both on-screen and exported reports. Two stylesheets are provided: "ugly" and "ugly with brighter colors" (the GnuCash developers used less informative names).

KMyMoney 0.8 does not provide graphical reports, but it does have a wide variety of tables. The display is readable, and highly configurable. Reports are persistent, but the mechanism takes a little getting used to. When a report is created, it is represented by a tab in the top of the report frame. The next time KMyMoney is started, that tab will be missing, but the report (if customized) will appear in the tree-oriented list of options. KMyMoney reports can be exported in HTML and CSV formats.

Grisbi, too, only offers tabular reports. There is an unbelievable number of configuration options, obtained by navigating through two layers of tabbed windows. The output has the requisite information, but is, in your editor's opinion, relatively hard to read. While both GnuCash and KMyMoney can create reports on investments, balances, and net worth (along with transactions), Grisbi is limited to transactions only.

None of the packages reviewed offers a useful report seen in some proprietary offerings: a projection of an account's balance into the future taking scheduled transactions into account. Such reports are necessarily inaccurate, but they can give a useful indication of whether trouble is approaching in the near future or not.

GnuCash's graphical reports set it apart (for now - KMyMoney 0.9 will have charts as well), but the truth of the matter is that the tabular reports are the truly useful ones. Unless your dinner-table budget discussions require using OpenOffice to present the situation, pie charts and the like are not often helpful for real decision making. KMyMoney's tabular reports are as good as GnuCash's, and arguably easier to read. Grisbi's narrower range of reports detracts from its usefulness here.

Scheduled transactions

Any worthwhile personal finance manager will have the ability to handle transactions scheduled for the future. This feature can be useful for future cash flow planning, speeding up the transaction entry process, or for simply getting a reminder to send off that car payment before the repo man shows up with a tow truck. Scheduled transactions can also be used to handle loan repayment and to help track loan balances.

GnuCash has a well-developed transaction scheduler, currently the best of the three packages reviewed here. The usual parameters can be set: amount, begin date, number of occurrences, payment frequency, accounts to use, etc. GnuCash has the widest selection of frequencies, and is the only one which can handle semi-monthly events. Since semi-monthly paychecks can be common - at least in the US - its omission in the other finance managers is an annoyance. An existing transaction can be used as a template for a scheduled transaction, which is a nice time saver.

Scheduled transactions can be entered automatically into the relevant ledgers, or they can wait for a manual action by the user. Another feature unique to GnuCash is a popup reminder of due transactions when the program starts up; those transactions can be edited and entered immediately, or that work can be postponed for later. The main window for scheduled transactions offers both a list view and a six- or twelve-month calendar showing when events will occur.

The GnuCash scheduled transaction code does appear to be a work in progress in spots. Different graphical conventions in parts make it look like something bolted on late in the development process. There is a mention of variables which can be used in transactions, but no apparent way to use the capability. Your editor was also able to crash GnuCash by playing with the scheduler windows.

KMyMoney offers many of the features needed in a transaction scheduler, but this feature needs a bit of work yet. Your editor succeeded in crashing the scheduler when attempting to create an event from an existing transaction; let it be said that crashes in a program intended to be managing one's money can be disconcerting. That said, KMyMoney's scheduler is close to what it needs to be.

The transaction editor contains the usual information. There is no provision, however, for split transactions, and no reminder options. The list of available frequencies does not include semi-monthly. It does offer both "fortnightly" and "every other week," however, leading the user to wonder just what the difference is. "Quarterly" and "every three months" are also distinct options.

The main scheduler window comes up in a list view, sorted by transaction type. There is also a single-month calendar view which is far less useful than the multi-month calendar provided by GnuCash. The single-month calendar has space to put actual information - payee and amount, for example - on the screen, but KMyMoney, instead, just puts in a large, red number showing only how many transactions fall due that day. The list and calendar views cannot be seen at the same time. One might think that double-clicking on an event in the list view would allow editing that event, but, instead, it switches to the calendar view. There appears to be no way to get KMyMoney to step through transactions which have fallen due; instead, they must be selected and entered, one at a time, from the list view.

Grisbi's scheduler is the least featureful and hardest to work with of the set. A number of features, such as creating a scheduled transaction from an existing register entry, do not appear to actually work. The editor is awkward to use, and makes poor use of the screen space. There is no useful calendar view. The list of available frequencies is quite small. If you are a Grisbi user, you'll be able to create and work with basic scheduled transactions, but it will be harder than it needs to be.

As mentioned above, none of the packages reviewed here is able to perform any sort of future cash flow projection based on scheduled transactions. Another missing feature, found in some proprietary packages, is the ability to detect manual entry of (what appears to be) a regular transaction and offer to create a schedule; this is not a feature that all users will miss, however.

Both GnuCash and KMyMoney have nice utilities for dealing with loan payments. A series of dialogs collects the relevant information and sets up an appropriate scheduled transaction. GnuCash displays a repayment table when the loan is set up, but there appears to be no way to ever get that table back later on. GnuCash also neglects to initialize the loan account to the starting balance; the user must do that separately or the loan balance will not be properly accounted. Both packages can handle interest calculations and various add-on payments. Grisbi, instead, has no functionality for dealing with loans.

Investing support

No modern personal finance manager would be complete without providing the ability to watch as one's money vanishes into the stock market. Both GnuCash and KMyMoney have investment tracking capabilities, with similar features. Grisbi, instead, lacks any sort of investment handling.

GnuCash and KMyMoney both treat stocks and mutual funds in a way similar to their treatment of currencies: they are commodities which, at any given time, can be exchanged for money at a particular price. Both of them can go to online sites to update their idea of what stocks and funds are worth, making it easy to get a snapshot of the value of a portfolio at any time.

The GnuCash way of dealing with stocks is borderline painful. The user must create a "commodity" entry describing the stock, providing information like the ticker symbol and where to get online updates. Then it becomes possible to create a new account associated with that stock. Only then can purchases and sales be entered. Sales are particularly obnoxious: one might think that entering the number of shares sold in the "sell" column would do the trick, but the Wrong Thing happens. One must, instead, enter a negative number of shares. It is not clear why there are separate columns, given this behavior.

KMyMoney is a little more straightforward, providing a set of dialogs which hold the user's hand through the process of setting up a new investment. The creation of individual accounts for each stock or fund is not required (or, at least, is hidden from the user). "Buy" and "sell" operations are easy to enter correctly. KMyMoney also has handling for brokerage fees; GnuCash can do the same through split transactions, but the user must take explicit action to make that happen.

KMyMoney has an explicit "dividend reinvest" operation, while GnuCash forces the user to figure out how to get the same effect via the register. GnuCash, instead, has an operation for dealing with stock splits. KMyMoney makes do with "add shares" and "remove shares" operations, which causes shares to arrive from (or disappear into) the void.

Both programs can generate reports showing the value of an investment portfolio and return over a period of time. Neither, however, can handle capital gains calculations - something that US users, at least, would appreciate. Neither program can plot the value of a portfolio over time. It does not appear to be possible to set up scheduled investment transactions in either program.

Other notes and conclusion

Your editor imported one year's worth of financial transactions into all three programs, and was able to make a couple of other observations. First of all, the size of the resulting files varied considerably:

Package	File size (KB)
GnuCash	1700
Grisbi	410
KMyMoney	54

The interesting thing is that all three packages use (different) XML-based file formats. KMyMoney compresses the file, however; when uncompressed, the file weighs in at 725KB. Grisbi gains its space savings by using a great many single-letter attributes.

The other observation is that KMyMoney is far slower to start up than the other two packages.

As mentioned in the first part of this report, GnuCash has a whole set of business-related features not found in the other two packages. These include a database of customers, vendors, and employees, and the ability to generate and track invoices. Job tracking is built in, and there is some capability for dealing with tax tables. The business features have a bit of an unfinished feel to them, however, and your editor suspects that very few businesses are actually using them.

GnuCash also has a poorly-maintained ability to operate with PostgreSQL as a back end. Sadly, this backend is unable to deal with business objects, making it unusable by the group which would be most likely to want that capability.

So which program would a grumpy editor recommend? One can start by eliminating Grisbi. This application has reached a level of functionality which, only a few years ago, would have placed it among the best available in the free software community. At this point, however, it lacks too much in the way of features, usability, and charm to be seriously considered by most users.

Among the other two, GnuCash still comes out on top with regard to both features and usability. Your editor hesitates to recommend GnuCash without reservation, however. One of the most important things to do when evaluating a free package is to come to a conclusion regarding the health of the development community. Unless you plan to take over maintenance and addition of new features yourself, it is nice to know that there is a strong community behind the software.

The GnuCash development community appears, from the outside, to be stuck in some sort of low point. The port to GNOME 2 has been ongoing for years, but there still is little idea of when it will be complete; as a result, distributors are considering dropping GnuCash because the pain of maintaining GNOME 1, now used almost exclusively by GnuCash, is getting to be too much. Discussion on the development mailing list is muted, and releases are increasingly scarce. GnuCash is at a bit of a crisis point. If its developers do not resolve the GNOME 2 issue and get development moving again in the near future, this outstanding application could be facing the end of its active life.

KMyMoney, instead, is on a roll. The development community is active and happy, features are being added at an impressive pace, and that 1.0 release appears to be getting closer. At current rates, it will be a matter of months, at most, before KMyMoney surpasses GnuCash in every area which matters to most users - and keeps on going. For this reason, along with the fact that KMyMoney 0.80 is nearly good enough already, your editor would have to recommend KMyMoney to anybody looking for a free personal finance manager at this time.

Comments (9 posted)

The Authors' Guild and Google Print

Lawyers, like the rest of us, are reacting with great interest and some passion to the Author's Guild's copyright infringement lawsuit against Google over its new Google Print Library Project, by which Google plans to scan books from the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, the University of Michigan, and the New York Public Library and make them searchable by keyword. Google describes the project's goals like this:

The Author's Guild describes it differently. To them, it's massive copyright infringement, pure and simple. The lawyers are trying to figure out who is right and which side is more likely to prevail, to the extent anyone can predict a fair use case, but there are bigger issues raised by this litigation. Here's the complaint [PDF] and Google's public statement in response. If you'd like to follow the lawyers' discussions, here are some places where you can do so: Susan Crawford's blog, William Patry's The Patry Copyright Blog, and Eric Goldman's Technology and Marketing Law Blog, and here's Andrew Raff's excellent collection of attorney reactions on IPTAblog. You might enjoy reading Tim O'Reilly's thoughtful take on the lawsuit, looking at it from a publisher's point of view.

How Google Print Library Works

What exactly is Google doing with Google Print? First, what *isn't* it doing? It isn't making copyrighted books available cover to cover against anyone's will. There are three parts to Google Print. One, Google makes books available in their entirety only when the books are in the public domain, like Project Gutenberg has done for years. Second, when publishers or authors agree, it makes sections available, the page the keyword appears on and a few pages on either side, but that is a separate facet of the project, the Google Print Publisher Program. The one the Author's Guild is fighting over is the third part, Google's Print Library Program, and for that Google will show only a few sentences on both sides of the keyword searched for, and not necessarily complete sentences. You never see a full page, let alone an entire book. You will also find bibliographic information and where you can find related information on the web. In all cases, you will also be directed to nearby libraries and bookstores where the book is available for purchase or loan, including second-hand bookstores for out-of-print books.

Screenshots of the three different offerings can be viewed here. And Google's Common Questions about the Google Print Library Project says that Google Print is "designed to help you discover books, not read them from start to finish. It's like going to a bookstore and browsing – only with a Google twist."

Google's Side

On the Google side, the clearest arguments are presented by EFF's Jason Schultz, who explains the four fair use tests; Jonathan Band's paper, "The Google Print Library Project: A Copyright Analysis" [PDF]; and Susan Crawford on her blog, all of whom essentially say that copying entire books in order to make a digital keyword-based catalog is transformative and is fair use. Google isn't copying more than is necessary, they argue, because you can't search for keywords unless you have the whole book available. And anyway, where's the harm to the market? They cite the Kelly v. Arriba Soft case [PDF], in which the defendant made thumbnails of other people's photos available online in response to search requests, with links to the original works, if anyone wanted to purchase them. Arriba's use was ruled fair use, despite the fact that not only was an entire copy of the original made, a smaller version of it, in its entirety, was made available to the public. Google is only showing a sentence or two, not the entire book, for works where the author hasn't given approval to show more. If Arriba is fair use, why isn't Google Print's Library Project also?

If you wrote an article for a magazine and quoted a sentence or two, likely no one would complain, because it's so obviously fair use, so why is it a problem for Google to do the same thing with books? And what is the difference between Google collecting the world's content made available on the Internet so as to make it searchable and collecting keywords from the world's books? Copyright holders can opt out. If Google Print violates copyright law, why doesn't Google, period?

A common theme on both sides of the argument goes like this: Google has had a fantastic idea, one that can benefit the human race, and almost everyone hopes there is a way for them to do this. It's just a question of how to do it right. Google is shouldering the expense and effort of making a library card catalogue, so to speak, of the world's knowledge and offering it free to the world. Can anyone *not* want that to happen?

Authors should want to be included so they can be found. The world does its research now predominantly online, and authors, particularly authors whose works aren't selling like hot cakes, have everything to gain from being included in Google Print.

Author's Guild's Side

On the Author's Guild side is the argument that authors have the right to decide when others may or may not copy their works. This case differs from Google indexing the web's content, because a license can be inferred when someone puts content on the web and doesn't take steps to ban Google and other search engines with a robots.txt file. There is no equivalent implied permission from the authors of these books.

Copyright law gives copyright holders the right to make copies, period, and no one else can do so without permission. Libraries don't own the copyrights to these works, so they can't give permission, it is argued. Google will violate copyright law, no matter how little it shows the world, because it will make copies and store them on its servers. The onus is on Google to contact all the authors and publishers and get permissions, one by one, they say. If that is so onerous and costly that Google Print Library can't happen, so be it. The law is the law. This side cites the MP3 decision [PDF].

We might wish it could happen, some on that side say, but copyright law is what it is, so it can't. Some even predict that this litigation will shut down search engines like Google's. A few hope that happens. Some of the complaints about Google Print seem more emotional than based on fact. One comment on Boing Boing by a publisher is particularly interesting:

A little more accurate information may help calm these fears. First, fair use doesn't exclude commercial use. I can write a parody, for example, of your book, even if you don't want me to, and I can sell my parody. Second, take a look at the terms of the Google-University of Michigan agreement [PDF], which is available on the university's web site, and you will see that Google has bound the University, and any of its partners, to limitations on access and use. Further, should there ever be a dispute between an author and Google about including a work, the work can be removed by Google, and the University must then follow suit. Authors can always opt out.

What about the allegation that Google will make money from this project from ads? Google says there won't be any ads on the books scanned from a library. This is important, because the Complaint specifically alleges that Google will be profiting by ads: "4. Google has announced plans to reproduce the Works for use on its website in order to attract visitors to its web site and generate advertising revenue thereby." As for the links to bookstores, Google says that the links they will provide will not be "paid for by those sites, nor does Google or any library benefit if you buy something from one of these retailers." Clause 4.3 of the agreement says that the service will be provided "at no direct cost to end users".

While the Author's Guild makes much of Google allegedly profiting off of its members' work, a strong argument can be made that it's the other way around, since Google is providing a new way for readers to discover their members' books, even those on the deep, deep backlist, as you can see in this example.

Are There Problems with the Complaint?

Then there are some attorneys already pointing out flaws, procedural defects they believe they see in the Author's Guild complaint. It is supposedly a class action, but some see a problem with class certification. The complaint defines the class as all persons or entities that hold the copyright to a literary work that is contained in the library of the University of Michigan. Class action lawsuits are supposed to represent the group the few who are named allegedly represent, but Lawrence Solum, who is an author, a member of the plaintiff class in the sense that he has several works in the University of Michigan's library, opposes the lawsuit and says he will be harmed if the Author's Guild prevails:

Is it Copying That Causes Harm, or Distribution?

Think about brick and mortar libraries. Suppose I were a librarian. I want to catalogue every book in my library and do it by keyword, so readers can come to the library and look up information by keywords on index cards that I laboriously file alphabetically in file cabinets. Each keyword will show you where in that library you can find a book that uses that keyword, with the page given, and additionally tells you where, in nearby bookstores, you can buy the book.

Would my painstaking work be a copyright offense? It's laughable to even think of it. Now, suppose I take all my index cards, and I laboriously hand type them into a computer. I have a computer database now, listing every keyword. Now have I violated copyright? Again, it doesn't pass the laugh test, does it?

But what if I realize that instead of the hand method, all I have to do is scan in the whole book and then pick out keywords by algorithm. Now am I a copyright infringer? If so, why? On the technicality that I had to scan in the whole book, thus making a copy, in order to break it down into keywords for my card catalogue of my library's contents? Purists for the law will say "Yes. You are an infringer," because you made a copy.

And they are right. You did. But exactly who is harmed by this scenario? The end result is exactly the same, whether I do the work by hand or by computer, except that Google deliberately limits how much I can see, whereas in the library, the keyword would lead me to the entire book, which presumably I could borrow, take home and scan or Xerox myself, if I don't care about copyright. If the copy merely stays on Google's servers, used only for making a digital card catalogue, in what way is the author or the publisher harmed? Have they lost any sales? Google isn't displaying the works in their entirety on its website, as the Author's Guild seems to imagine. It isn't selling the books or offering them for download. It is offering a tool to search books. Where is the harm to the market? Libraries have special rights under Copyright Law. Why shouldn't this project?

The Big Picture Questions

For those of us who are not lawyers, our dominant reaction to this lawsuit is probably that if Google Print Library violates copyright law, somebody needs to change the law. This litigation raises some important questions: What is a library in the digital age? What is a book? Is Google Print going to do away with books as containers of knowledge, replaced by searchable databases? What about this litigation's effect on copyright law in the US? Is it possible, as one comment on the Conglomerate blog suggests, that if it wins, "Google may be planting the seeds of the destruction of copyright as we know it"?

Computers are, under current law, the ultimate infringers, in the sense that you can't read anything on a computer without making a copy in RAM. There is, in short, no way to avoid making a copy, if you access at all. It's the gotcha of copyright law in the digital age, and at some point, some say, we need to think about that issue and decide what to do about it. If you want the hairs on your head to stand straight up, note the lack of comprehension of the tech involved in using a computer by reading the MAI SYSTEMS CORP. v. PEAK COMPUTER, INC., 991 F.2d 511 (9th Cir. 1993) decision: "After reviewing the record, we find no specific facts . . . which indicate that the copy created in the RAM is not fixed."

Susan Crawford explains:

Ernest Miller and Joan Feigenbaum, in their very interesting paper "Taking the Copy out of Copyright" [PDF], suggest that we drop the copy from copyright law and focus on distribution instead. After all, it's distribution that harms authors and publishers, not copies on a Google server no one can see or access but Google.

We watched Napster get hogtied, killed, cremated and scattered to the winds, and most of us were sad that the law was trying to snuff out a great new idea because the courts seemed not to grasp the tech and the real potential for businesses founded on this new technology. But the world's books? Should the law block a new way to research and find books on any topic any human has ever written about, broken down and searchable by keyword, a way to to find specific books by keyword in the finest libraries in the world, without having to travel there physically?

Larry Lessig puts it like this:

The Author's Guild has only 8,000 members. I say "only" because Groklaw has more members than that. The value to the public of Google's Print Library collection so far outweighs the value of one book to one author or even 8,000 books to 8,000 authors, that it is hard to comprehend how any law could be permitted that could allow such a result as shutting down Google on the demand of those 8,000 authors.

Copyright law is designed to protect authors, yes, but it is supposed to do so in a balance with the public good. Copyright law's purpose is to further the public good by promoting more works of authorship, so as to make knowledge available. When did that part of the law's purpose get forgotten? Protecting authors' rights is a means to the end of making knowledge more freely available, which is exactly what Google is trying to do. If the Author's Guild succeeds in blocking this project, it will have managed to turn copyright into a means for restricting the spread of ideas and reducing the public good.

Comments (25 posted)

An LWN status update

The LWN subscription experiment is now three years old. One might well conclude that it is no longer an "experiment"; it is simply the way LWN works. This anniversary is as good a time as any to look at how well it is working, and where we think things might go from here.

LWN currently just over 3100 active subscribers; approximately 1000 more read LWN by way of group subscriptions. We are pleased that Red Hat Inc. has recently signed up as a corporate subscriber, as have a few other, smaller groups. This subscription level is nice to have, but it is very similar to what we had last year - especially on the individual side. For the time being, at least, our subscriber level is essentially flat.

Money from subscriptions goes to pay three full-time editors, one very part-time bookkeeper, health insurance, travel costs, bandwidth, computers, lawyers (not too often, fortunately), credit card processing fees, and all the other incidental costs of running a business. LWN currently pays for no office space, and plans for the procurement of a corporate yacht remain stalled (which is just as well, considering that a yacht is of limited use in Colorado). We are pleased that Rackspace.com continues to donate bandwidth for the main server, that TrustCommerce covers their part of our credit card fees, and that various sponsors have made it possible for LWN staff to attend conferences and meetings in distant parts of the world.

The end result, however, is that the current subscription level is not sufficient for sustainable operation even with the current staff. And LWN in its current form will not be truly sustainable without at least one additional staff member. So we must find a way to bring in more revenue to fund that staff member, raise our payments for outside authors to a more competitive level, attend (and report on) important free software events, deal with the long list of site improvement ideas, broaden our coverage, cope with the next inevitable horrifying health insurance cost increase, and, just maybe, give a long-delayed raise to the current staff. That might just make the grumpy editor feel a little better about the world.

We have a long list of ideas on how we might bring about that increase. Most of them are oriented toward making LWN a more valuable resource and trying to actively sell LWN subscriptions. One short-term idea (which we would like feedback on) is increasing the lockout time on subscription-only content to two weeks, or possibly more. We value our free readers, and we live for those "I finally decided to subscribe" notes, but we also have to strike a balance which respects those who are actually paying for LWN's existence. In the longer term, we may seek some sort of financing to help grow LWN into a truly sustainable business.

One thing we do not intend to change is our commitment to providing the net's most comprehensive, accurate, and well-written coverage of the Linux and free software development communities. That is what LWN set out to do back in 1997, and we've never seen any reason to try for anything else. The years in between have been a wild ride, with amazing ups and downs. But, during that time, Linux has gotten stronger, and we have built up the best group of readers we could have hoped for. We expect that the coming years will be just as interesting - and just as successful.

Comments (101 posted)

Page editor: Jonathan Corbet

Security

Rule set based access control

SELinux has become, to many, the mechanism for high-security Linux deployments. The SELinux framework is considered sufficiently powerful, flexible, and universal that some developers have contemplated removing the Linux security module (LSM) interface altogether. When SELinux does everything, why have hooks for anything else? The fact of the matter, however, is that SELinux is not the only high-security approach out there. On September 27, version 1.2.5 of the Rule Set Based Access Control (RSBAC) patch was released. RSBAC has been around for several years, but it has never quite achieved the prominence of SELinux.

Like SELinux, RSBAC inserts hooks throughout the kernel source. RSBAC does not use the LSM framework, however. This page explains why; in short, the RSBAC developer (Amon Ott) does not like how LSM exposes kernel internals to security modules, and the LSM hooks are not nearly extensive enough for RSBAC. In fact, RSBAC adds hooks in many places (individual device drivers, for example) where LSM does not tread. RSBAC hooks can also change system state in ways not allowed with the LSM framework.

With the hooks in place, RSBAC allows for several different access control regimes, all of which can be mixed and matched as desired. Available options include:

• Authenticated user: essentially a list of user IDs which may be assumed by each process on the system. This module is required by most other RSBAC security schemes.

• User management: a replacement for the PAM and shadow mechanisms which moves most of the user and group management tasks into the kernel.

• Role compatibility: assigns roles to users and programs, and ensures that they match at run time.

• Access control lists: a variant of file ACLs which can take additional RSBAC features (such as roles) into account.

• Mandatory access control: assigns security levels to processes and objects, and prevents access between different levels.

• Dazuko: a specialized interface for virus scanning applications. Dazuko creates a special purpose device which can be used to intercept file accesses; malware scans can then be performed before the access is allowed to succeed. There is a ClamAV interface to Dazuko.

There are several other models available, see the RSBAC models page for the full list. One thing that should be clear is that the RSBAC framework has been used to implement a wide variety of access control mechanisms. The project's long history suggests a stable user base, and RSBAC has been adopted by some distributions (including the Adamantix (formerly "Trusted Debian") and Hardened Gentoo projects). The non-LSM approach seems likely to keep RSBAC out of the mainline kernel indefinitely (nobody is even proposing merging it), but RSBAC appears to be a viable option regardless.

Comments (2 posted)

Security news

RHEL 5 going for Common Criteria EAL 4 rating

Red Hat (along with IBM and Trusted Computer Solutions) has announced that the upcoming release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is being evaluated for Common Criteria EAL 4 certification. "This CCEVS evaluation means Red Hat Enterprise Linux will reach a level of security previously achieved by only a handful of trusted operating systems. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is now positioned to provide best-of-breed security capabilities for commercial operating systems, offering the government, as well as businesses, unprecedented choice for security applications."

Comments (19 posted)

PwnZilla 5 Exploits IDN Link Buffer Overflow (MozillaZine)

MozillaZine reports that a recently developed Firefox IDN link buffer overflow vulnerability exploit has been developed. "The PwnZilla 5 code takes advantage of the international domain name (IDN) link buffer overflow flaw, details of which were published earlier this month. The weblog post says that the exploit code "could let attackers take complete control over computers cruising the Web with unpatched versions of the Firefox Internet browser". Previous public exploits for the vulnerability have been basic proof-of-concepts that simply crash the browser."

Comments (2 posted)

New vulnerabilities

courier: missing input sanitizing

Package(s):	courier	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2820
Created:	September 26, 2005	Updated:	October 11, 2005
Description:	Jakob Balle discovered that with "Conditional Comments" in Internet Explorer it is possible to hide javascript code in comments that will be executed when the browser views a malicious email via sqwebmail. Successful exploitation requires that the user is using Internet Explorer.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-820-1 2005-09-24 Ubuntu USN-201-1 2005-10-11

Comments (none posted)

cups: denial of service

Package(s):	cups	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2874
Created:	September 22, 2005	Updated:	September 28, 2005
Description:	CUPS has a vulnerability that can be triggered by processing corrupted HTTP requests. A remote user can use this to cause a denial of service.
Alerts:	Fedora FEDORA-2005-908 2005-09-22 Red Hat RHSA-2005:772-01 2005-09-27

Comments (none posted)

firefox: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):	firefox	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2701 CAN-2005-2702 CAN-2005-2703 CAN-2005-2704 CAN-2005-2705 CAN-2005-2706 CAN-2005-2707 CAN-2005-2968
Created:	September 22, 2005	Updated:	February 15, 2006
Description:	The Firefox browser has multiple vulnerabilities including problems with XBM image file processing, Unicode sequence processing, XMLHttp requests, malicious XBL binding, a JavaScript engine buffer overflow, about: pages, opening of new windows, and command line URL processing.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2005:785-01 2005-09-22 Red Hat RHSA-2005:789-01 2005-09-22 Ubuntu USN-186-1 2005-09-23 Ubuntu USN-186-2 2005-09-25 Fedora FEDORA-2005-926 2005-09-26 Fedora FEDORA-2005-927 2005-09-26 Fedora FEDORA-2005-928 2005-09-26 Fedora FEDORA-2005-929 2005-09-26 Fedora FEDORA-2005-930 2005-09-26 Fedora FEDORA-2005-931 2005-09-26 Fedora FEDORA-2005-932 2005-09-26 Fedora FEDORA-2005-933 2005-09-26 Fedora FEDORA-2005-934 2005-09-26 Slackware SSA:2005-269-01 2005-09-26 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:169 2005-09-26 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:170 2005-09-26 SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:058 2005-09-30 Gentoo GLSA 200509-11:02 2005-09-18 Debian DSA-838-1 2005-10-02 Ubuntu USN-155-3 2005-10-04 Ubuntu USN-200-1 2005-10-11 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:168375 2006-01-09 Slackware SSA:2006-045-02 2006-02-15

Comments (none posted)

HelixPlayer: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):	HelixPlayer	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2710
Created:	September 27, 2005	Updated:	October 10, 2005
Description:	A format string bug was discovered in the way HelixPlayer processes RealPix (.rp) files. It is possible for a malformed RealPix file to execute arbitrary code as the user running HelixPlayer.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2005:788-01 2005-09-27 Red Hat RHSA-2005:762-02 2005-09-27 Fedora FEDORA-2005-940 2005-09-27 Fedora FEDORA-2005-941 2005-09-27 Debian DSA-826-1 2005-09-29 Gentoo 200510-07 2005-10-07 SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:059 2005-10-10

Comments (none posted)

kernel: buffer overflow

Package(s):	kernel	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2490 CAN-2005-2492
Created:	September 22, 2005	Updated:	October 5, 2005
Description:	The Linux kernel has a stack-based buffer overflow problem in the sendmsg function. Local users may use this to execute arbitrary code.
Alerts:	Fedora FEDORA-2005-905 2005-09-22 Fedora FEDORA-2005-906 2005-09-22 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:171 2005-10-03 Red Hat RHSA-2005:514-01 2005-10-05

Comments (none posted)

kernel: DoS vulnerabilities

Package(s):	kernel	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-1767 CAN-2005-3044
Created:	September 26, 2005	Updated:	September 28, 2005
Description:	A Denial of Service vulnerability was detected in the stack segment fault handler. A local attacker could exploit this by causing stack fault exceptions under special circumstances (scheduling), which lead to a kernel crash. (CAN-2005-1767) Vasiliy Averin discovered a Denial of Service vulnerability in the "tiocgdev" ioctl call and in the "routing_ioctl" function. By calling fget() and fput() in special ways, a local attacker could exploit this to destroy file descriptor structures and crash the kernel. (CAN-2005-3044)
Alerts:	Ubuntu USN-187-1 2005-09-25 Red Hat RHSA-2005:663-01 2005-09-28

Comments (none posted)

opera: script insertion attacks

Package(s):	opera	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-3006 CAN-2005-3007
Created:	September 26, 2005	Updated:	September 28, 2005
Description:	Attached files are opened without any warnings directly from the user's cache directory. This can be exploited to execute arbitrary Javascript in context of "file://". Normally, filename extensions are determined by the "Content-Type" in Opera Mail. However, by appending an additional '.' to the end of a filename, an HTML file could be spoofed to be e.g. "image.jpg.". These two vulnerabilities combined may be exploited to conduct script insertion attacks if the user chooses to view an attachment named e.g. "image.jpg." e.g. resulting in disclosure of local files. These are fixed in Opera 8.50.
Alerts:	SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:057 2005-09-26

Comments (none posted)

qt: buffer overflow in zlib

Package(s):	qt	CVE #(s):
Created:	September 26, 2005	Updated:	September 28, 2005
Description:	Qt links to a bundled vulnerable version of zlib when emerged with the zlib USE-flag disabled. This may lead to a buffer overflow. By creating a specially crafted compressed data stream, attackers can overwrite data structures for applications that use Qt, resulting in a Denial of Service or potentially arbitrary code execution.
Alerts:	Gentoo 200509-18 2005-09-26

Comments (none posted)

webmin, usermin: remote code execution through PAM authentication

Package(s):	webmin usermin	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-3042
Created:	September 26, 2005	Updated:	October 7, 2005
Description:	Keigo Yamazaki discovered that the miniserv.pl webserver, used in both Webmin and Usermin, does not properly validate authentication credentials before sending them to the PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) authentication process. The default configuration shipped with Gentoo does not enable the "full PAM conversations" option and is therefore unaffected by this flaw.
Alerts:	Gentoo 200509-17 2005-09-24 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:176 2005-10-07

Comments (none posted)

Updated vulnerabilities

OpenSSL: denial of service vulnerabilities

Package(s):	OpenSSL	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0081 CAN-2003-0851
Created:	March 17, 2004	Updated:	November 2, 2005
Description:	Versions 0.9.7a-c of the OpenSSL library suffer from two denial of service vulnerabilities; see the version 0.9.7d release announcement for details.
Alerts:	EnGarde ESA-20040317-003 2004-03-17 Red Hat RHSA-2004:119-01 2004-03-17 Red Hat RHSA-2004:120-01 2004-03-17 SuSE SuSE-SA:2004:007 2004-03-17 Mandrake MDKSA-2004:023 2004-03-17 Netwosix NW-2004-0005 2004-03-17 Debian DSA-465-1 2004-03-17 Gentoo 200403-03 2004-03-17 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2004.007 2004-03-18 Red Hat RHSA-2004:121-01 2004-03-17 Slackware SSA:2004-077-01 2004-03-17 Trustix TSLSA-2004-0012 2004-03-17 Whitebox WBSA-2004:120-01 2004-03-22 Fedora FEDORA-2004-095 2004-03-19 Red Hat RHSA-2004:084-01 2004-03-23 Whitebox WBSA-2004:084-01 2004-03-23 Conectiva CLA-2004:834 2004-03-31 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:1395 2004-05-08 Fedora FEDORA-2005-1042 2005-10-31 Red Hat RHSA-2005:829-00 2005-11-02 Red Hat RHSA-2005:830-00 2005-11-02

Comments (1 posted)

Py2Play: remote execution of arbitrary Python code

Package(s):	Py2Play	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2875
Created:	September 19, 2005	Updated:	September 6, 2006
Description:	Py2Play uses Python pickles to send objects over a peer-to-peer game network, that clients accept without restriction the objects and code sent by peers. A remote attacker participating in a Py2Play-powered game can send malicious Python pickles, resulting in the execution of arbitrary Python code on the targeted game client.
Alerts:	Gentoo 200509-09 2005-09-17 Debian DSA-856-1 2005-10-10 Gentoo 200509-09:02 2005-09-17

Comments (none posted)

a2ps: input validation error

Package(s):	a2ps	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-1170 CAN-2004-1377
Created:	November 26, 2004	Updated:	December 19, 2005
Description:	The GNU a2ps utility fails to properly sanitize filenames, which can be abused by a malicious user to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the user running the vulnerable application. More information at Security Focus.
Alerts:	Mandrake MDKSA-2004:140 2004-11-25 Debian DSA-612-1 2004-12-20 Gentoo 200501-02 2005-01-04 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2005.003 2005-01-17 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:097 2005-06-07 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152870 2005-12-17

Comments (none posted)

apache information disclosure if modssl=yes

Package(s):	apache	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2700
Created:	September 2, 2005	Updated:	November 10, 2005
Description:	An information disclosure vulnerability was discovered in mod_ssl, the SSL/TLS module of the Apache webserver. When "SSLVerifyClient optional" was configured in the global virtual host configuration, an "SSLVerifyClient require" in per-location context was not enforced.
Alerts:	OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2005.017 2005-09-02 Red Hat RHSA-2005:608-01 2005-09-06 Ubuntu USN-177-1 2005-09-07 Debian DSA-805-1 2005-09-08 Fedora FEDORA-2005-848 2005-09-07 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:161 2005-09-08 Fedora FEDORA-2005-849 2005-09-07 Slackware SSA:2005-251-02 2005-09-09 Debian DSA-807-1 2005-09-12 Slackware SSA:2005-251-03 2005-09-14 Red Hat RHSA-2005:773-01 2005-09-15 SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:052 2005-09-12 Gentoo 200509-12 2005-09-19 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:166941 2005-11-09

Comments (none posted)

httpd: off-by-one overflow and cross-site scripting

Package(s):	apache httpd	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-1268 CAN-2005-2088
Created:	July 25, 2005	Updated:	November 7, 2005
Description:	Watchfire reported a flaw that occurred when using the Apache server as an HTTP proxy. A remote attacker could send an HTTP request with both a "Transfer-Encoding: chunked" header and a "Content-Length" header. This caused Apache to incorrectly handle and forward the body of the request in a way that the receiving server processes it as a separate HTTP request. This could allow the bypass of Web application firewall protection or lead to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. Marc Stern reported an off-by-one overflow in the mod_ssl CRL verification callback. In order to exploit this issue the Apache server would need to be configured to use a malicious certificate revocation list (CRL).
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2005:582-01 2005-07-25 SuSE SUSE-SR:2005:018 2005-07-28 Trustix TSLSA-2005-0038 2005-07-29 Fedora FEDORA-2005-639 2005-08-02 Fedora FEDORA-2005-638 2005-08-02 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:129 2005-08-03 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:130 2005-08-03 Ubuntu USN-160-1 2005-08-04 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:157701 2005-08-10 SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:046 2005-08-16 Ubuntu USN-160-2 2005-09-07 Debian DSA-803-1 2005-09-08 Slackware SSA:2005-310-04 2005-11-07

Comments (none posted)

awstats: command injection vulnerability

Package(s):	awstats	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-1527
Created:	August 11, 2005	Updated:	November 10, 2005
Description:	AWStats has a command injection vulnerability that can be exploited by specially crafting referrer URLs that contain Perl code. The code can then be executed with the privileges of the web server.
Alerts:	Ubuntu USN-167-1 2005-08-11 Gentoo 200508-07 2005-08-16 Debian DSA-892-1 2005-11-10

Comments (2 posted)

bzip2: race condition and infinite loop

Package(s):	bzip2	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-0953 CAN-2005-1260
Created:	May 17, 2005	Updated:	January 10, 2007
Description:	A race condition in bzip2 1.0.2 and earlier allows local users to modify permissions of arbitrary files via a hard link attack on a file while it is being decompressed, whose permissions are changed by bzip2 after the decompression is complete. Also specially crafted bzip2 archives may cause an infinite loop in the decompressor.
Alerts:	Ubuntu USN-127-1 2005-05-17 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:091 2005-05-18 Debian DSA-730-1 2005-05-27 SuSE SUSE-SR:2005:015 2005-06-07 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2005.008 2005-06-10 Red Hat RHSA-2005:474-01 2005-06-16 Debian DSA-741-1 2005-07-07 rPath rPSA-2007-0004-1 2007-01-09

Comments (2 posted)

clamav: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):	clamav	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2919 CAN-2005-2920
Created:	September 19, 2005	Updated:	September 29, 2005
Description:	The release notes for ClamAV 0.87 note that this version fixes vulnerabilities in the handling of UPX and FSG compressed executables.
Alerts:	Gentoo 200509-13 2005-09-19 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:166 2005-09-20 Debian-Testing DTSA-19-1 2005-09-22 Trustix TSLSA-2005-0051 2005-09-23 SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:055 2005-09-26 Debian DSA-824-1 2005-09-29

Comments (none posted)

common-lisp-controller: design error

Package(s):	common-lisp-controller	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2657
Created:	September 14, 2005	Updated:	November 21, 2005
Description:	François-René Rideau discovered a bug in common-lisp-controller, a Common Lisp source and compiler manager, that allows a local user to compile malicious code into a cache directory which is executed by another user if that user has not used Common Lisp before.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-811-1 2005-09-14 Debian DSA-811-2 2005-11-21

Comments (none posted)

cpio: directory traversal

Package(s):	cpio	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-1111
Created:	June 20, 2005	Updated:	December 26, 2005
Description:	There is a vulnerability in cpio (2.6 and previous) that allows a malicious cpio file to extract to an arbitrary directory of the attackers choice. cpio will extract to the path specified in the cpio file, this path can be absolute.
Alerts:	Gentoo 200506-16 2005-06-20 Trustix TSLSA-2005-0030 2005-06-24 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:116 2005-07-11 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:116-1 2005-07-19 Red Hat RHSA-2005:378-01 2005-07-21 Ubuntu USN-189-1 2005-09-29 Debian DSA-846-1 2005-10-07 Red Hat RHSA-2005:806-01 2005-11-10 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:237 2005-12-23

Comments (1 posted)

cyrus-imapd: buffer overflows

Package(s):	cyrus-imapd	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-0546
Created:	February 23, 2005	Updated:	April 9, 2006
Description:	Cyrus-imapd, prior to version 2.2.12, contains several buffer overflows which could be exploited by an (authenticated) attacker to run code on the server system.
Alerts:	Gentoo 200502-29 2005-02-23 SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:009 2005-02-24 Ubuntu USN-87-1 2005-02-28 Mandrake MDKSA-2005:051 2005-03-04 Conectiva CLA-2005:937 2005-03-17 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2005.005 2005-04-05 Fedora FEDORA-2005-339 2005-04-27 Red Hat RHSA-2005:408-01 2005-05-17 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:156290 2006-04-04

Comments (none posted)

elm: buffer overflow

Package(s):	elm	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2665
Created:	August 23, 2005	Updated:	November 10, 2005
Description:	A buffer overflow flaw in Elm was discovered that was triggered by viewing a mailbox containing a message with a carefully crafted 'Expires' header. An attacker could create a malicious message that would execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user who received it.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2005:755-01 2005-08-23 Slackware SSA:2005-311-01 2005-11-08

Comments (none posted)

emacs21: format string vulnerability in "movemail"

Package(s):	emacs21	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-0100
Created:	February 7, 2005	Updated:	May 15, 2006
Description:	Max Vozeler discovered a format string vulnerability in the "movemail" utility of Emacs. By sending specially crafted packets, a malicious POP3 server could cause a buffer overflow, which could be exploited to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user and the "mail" group.
Alerts:	Ubuntu USN-76-1 2005-02-07 Debian DSA-670-1 2005-02-08 Debian DSA-671-1 2005-02-08 Fedora FEDORA-2005-115 2005-02-08 Fedora FEDORA-2005-116 2005-02-08 Red Hat RHSA-2005:112-01 2005-02-10 Red Hat RHSA-2005:134-01 2005-02-10 Red Hat RHSA-2005:110-01 2005-02-15 Red Hat RHSA-2005:133-01 2005-02-15 Fedora FEDORA-2005-145 2005-02-14 Fedora FEDORA-2005-146 2005-02-14 Gentoo 200502-20 2005-02-15 Mandrake MDKSA-2005:038 2005-02-15 Debian DSA-685-1 2005-02-17 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152898 2006-05-12

Comments (none posted)

enscript: arbitrary code execution

Package(s):	enscript	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-1184 CAN-2004-1185 CAN-2004-1186
Created:	January 21, 2005	Updated:	May 27, 2006
Description:	Erik Sjölund has discovered several security relevant problems in enscript, a program to convert ASCII text into Postscript and other formats. Unsanitized input can cause the execution of arbitrary commands via EPSF pipe support. Due to missing sanitizing of filenames it is possible that a specially crafted filename can cause arbitrary commands to be executed. Multiple buffer overflows can cause the program to crash.
Alerts:	Debian DSA-654-1 2005-01-21 Ubuntu USN-68-1 2005-01-24 Fedora FEDORA-2005-015 2005-01-26 Fedora FEDORA-2005-016 2005-01-26 Fedora FEDORA-2005-091 2005-01-28 Fedora FEDORA-2005-092 2005-01-28 Fedora FEDORA-2005-096 2005-01-31 Red Hat RHSA-2005:039-01 2005-02-01 Gentoo 200502-03 2005-02-02 Mandrake MDKSA-2005:033 2005-02-10 Red Hat RHSA-2005:040-01 2005-02-15 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:152892 2005-12-17 rPath rPSA-2006-0083-1 2006-05-26

Comments (none posted)

ethereal: dissector vulnerabilities

Package(s):	ethereal	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2365 CAN-2005-2367 CAN-2005-2360 CAN-2005-2361 CAN-2005-2362 CAN-2005-2363 CAN-2005-2364 CAN-2005-2366
Created:	July 28, 2005	Updated:	October 10, 2005
Description:	The ethereal network traffic analyzer has several vulnerabilities, involving traffic dissectors. Dissectors have buffer overflows, format string overflows, and crashing/denial of service issues.
Alerts:	Gentoo 200507-27 2005-07-28 Fedora FEDORA-2005-651 2005-07-28 Fedora FEDORA-2005-655 2005-07-29 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:131 2005-08-04 Red Hat RHSA-2005:687-01 2005-08-10 Debian DSA-853-1 2005-10-09

Comments (none posted)

evolution: format string issues

Package(s):	evolution	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2549 CAN-2005-2550
Created:	August 15, 2005	Updated:	March 23, 2006
Description:	Evolution has format string issues. SITIC advisory SA05-001 contains more information.
Alerts:	Fedora FEDORA-2005-743 2005-08-11 Fedora FEDORA-2005-742 2005-08-11 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:141 2005-08-17 Gentoo 200508-12 2005-08-23 Red Hat RHSA-2005:267-01 2005-08-29 SuSE SUSE-SA:2005:054 2005-09-16 Debian DSA-1016-1 2006-03-23

Comments (2 posted)

Foomatic: Arbitrary command execution in foomatic-rip

Package(s):	foomatic	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0801
Created:	September 20, 2004	Updated:	May 31, 2006
Description:	There is a vulnerability in the foomatic-filters package. This vulnerability is due to insufficient checking of command-line parameters and environment variables in the foomatic-rip filter. This vulnerability may allow both local and remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands on the print server with the permissions of the spooler.
Alerts:	Gentoo 200409-24 2004-09-20 Fedora FEDORA-2004-303 2004-09-21 Conectiva CLA-2004:880 2004-10-27 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:2076 2004-11-05 SuSE SUSE-SA:2006:026 2006-05-30

Comments (none posted)

gaim: buffer overflow

Package(s):	gaim	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-2103
Created:	August 10, 2005	Updated:	February 27, 2006
Description:	Gaim suffers from a heap-based buffer overflow which can be exploited via a hostile "away message" to execute arbitrary code.
Alerts:	Red Hat RHSA-2005:589-01 2005-08-09 Ubuntu USN-168-1 2005-08-12 Gentoo 200508-06 2005-08-15 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:139 2005-08-15 Fedora FEDORA-2005-750 2005-08-17 Fedora FEDORA-2005-751 2005-08-17 Slackware SSA:2005-242-03 2005-08-31 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:158543 2006-02-25

Comments (none posted)

gdb: multiple vulnerabilities

Package(s):	gdb	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-1704 CAN-2005-1705
Created:	May 20, 2005	Updated:	August 11, 2006
Description:	Tavis Ormandy of the Gentoo Linux Security Audit Team discovered an integer overflow in the BFD library, resulting in a heap overflow. A review also showed that by default, gdb insecurely sources initialization files from the working directory. Successful exploitation would result in the execution of arbitrary code on loading a specially crafted object file or the execution of arbitrary commands.
Alerts:	Gentoo 200505-15 2005-05-20 Ubuntu USN-135-1 2005-05-27 Ubuntu USN-136-1 2005-05-27 Ubuntu USN-136-2 2005-05-27 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:095 2005-05-30 Trustix TSLSA-2005-0025 2005-05-31 Gentoo 200506-01 2005-06-01 Fedora FEDORA-2005-497 2005-06-29 Fedora FEDORA-2005-498 2005-06-29 Red Hat RHSA-2005:659-01 2005-09-28 Red Hat RHSA-2005:673-01 2005-10-05 Red Hat RHSA-2005:709-01 2005-10-05 Red Hat RHSA-2005:763-01 2005-10-11 Red Hat RHSA-2005:801-01 2005-10-18 Fedora FEDORA-2005-1032 2005-10-27 Fedora FEDORA-2005-1033 2005-10-27 Mandriva MDKSA-2005:215 2005-11-23 Red Hat RHSA-2006:0368-01 2006-07-20 Red Hat RHSA-2006:0354-01 2006-08-10

Comments (5 posted)

gtk-pixbuf, gtk2: denial of service

Package(s):	gdk-pixbuf gtk2	CVE #(s):	CAN-2005-0891
Created:	March 30, 2005	Updated:	December 19, 2005
Description:	The BMP image processing code in gdk-pixbuf and gtk2 contains a denial of service vulnerability exploitable via a specially crafted image file.
Alerts:	Fedora FEDORA-2005-265 2005-03-30 Fedora FEDORA-2005-266 2005-03-30 Fedora FEDORA-2005-267 2005-03-30 Fedora FEDORA-2005-268 2005-03-30 Red Hat RHSA-2005:344-01 2005-04-01 Red Hat RHSA-2005:343-01 2005-04-05 Ubuntu USN-108-1 2005-04-05 Mandrake MDKSA-2005:068 2005-04-07 Mandrake MDKSA-2005:069 2005-04-07 SuSE SUSE-SR:2005:010 2005-04-08 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:154272 2005-07-15 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:155510 2005-12-17

Comments (none posted)

gettext: Insecure temporary file handling

Package(s):	gettext	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0966
Created:	October 11, 2004	Updated:	March 1, 2006
Description:	gettext insecurely creates temporary files in world-writeable directories with predictable names. A local attacker could create symbolic links in the temporary files directory, pointing to a valid file somewhere on the filesystem. When gettext is called, this would result in file access with the rights of the user running the utility, which could be the root user.
Alerts:	Gentoo 200410-10 2004-10-10 Ubuntu USN-5-1 2004-10-27 OpenPKG OpenPKG-SA-2004.055 2004-12-23 Gentoo 200410-10:02 2004-10-10 Fedora-Legacy FLSA:136323 2006-01-09 Mandriva MDKSA-2006:051 2006-02-28

Comments (1 posted)

ghostscript: symlink vulnerabilities

Package(s):	ghostscript	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0967
Created:	October 20, 2004	Updated:	September 28, 2005
Description:	The ghostscript package (prior to version 7.07.1-r7) contains several scripts which are vulnerable to symlink attacks.
Alerts:	Gentoo 200410-18 2004-10-20 Ubuntu USN-3-1 2004-10-27 Red Hat RHSA-2005:081-01 2005-09-28

Comments (none posted)

glibc: tempfile vulnerability in catchsegv script

Package(s):	glibc	CVE #(s):	CAN-2004-0968
Created:	October 21, 2004	Updated:	November 14, 2005
Description:	The catchsegv script in the glibc package has a symlink vulnerability that may allow a local user to overwrite arbitrary files with the permissions of the user that is running the script.
Alerts:	Gentoo 200410-19 2004-10