Thursday, October 25, 2007

Theo de Raadt on x86 Virtualization

From: Theo de Raadt <deraadt@...>
Subject: Re: About Xen: maybe a reiterative question but ..
Date: Oct 24, 3:14 am 2007

> Virtualization seems to have a lot of security benefits.

You've been smoking something really mind altering, and I think you
should share it.

x86 virtualization is about basically placing another nearly full
kernel, full of new bugs, on top of a nasty x86 architecture which
barely has correct page protection. Then running your operating
system on the other side of this brand new pile of shit.

You are absolutely deluded, if not stupid, if you think that a
worldwide collection of software engineers who can't write operating
systems or applications without security holes, can then turn around
and suddenly write virtualization layers without security holes.

You've seen something on the shelf, and it has all sorts of pretty
colours, and you've bought it.

That's all x86 virtualization is.