Snap store from Canonical (Ubuntu) hit with another crypto scam app
Snap store from Canonical (Ubuntu) hit with another crypto scam app
Not the first time this has happened, but recently the Snap store from Canonical hosted a scam bitcoin app that claimed to be Exodus wallet that caused a user to lose money.
Proprietary software platform makers should always be held accountable for what happens on said platform.
systemctl disable --now snapdDisabling a systemd service won't prevent it from starting. For example, if another service depends on it then it will start anyway.
You have to mask the service which redirects the service files to
/dev/nullso that the service effectively has zero directives.systemctl mask --now snapdIt also means that anything which depends on snapd will likely fail. That is absolutely an improvement since we obviously don't want anything that depends on snaps.
I don't think you understand, it's closed-source for your safety! If it were opensource there would be many more malicious apps. Only we can hold those at bay and only we know which improvements to implement as we know better than everybody else. Trust me, you're safer this way /s
I enjoy y'all acting like this couldn't happen with flatpak or AppImages
Those are just app distribution formats. Since there's just 1 snap store which can deliver snaps, they're not comparable.
People download and run completely opaque AppImages from god knows where and that's better than Snap Store which is hit with malicious apps so rarely it's actual news
Flatpak also has a system where any scammer and malicious developer can just roll their own flatpak repo and voila, nobody can stop them. If it ever becomes mainstream, it'll be a shit show worse than Google Play
It absolutely could. Heck, RPMs and DEBs pulled from random sites can do the exact same thing as well. Even source code can hide something if not checked. There's even a very famous hack presented by Ken Thompson in 1984 that really speaks to the underlying thing, "what is trust?"
And that's really what this gets into. The means of delivery change as the years go by, but the underlying principal of trust is the thing that stays the same. In general, Canonical does review somewhat apps published to snapcraft. However, that review does not mean you are protected and this is very clearly indicated within the TOS.
14.1 Your use of the Snap Store is at your sole risk
So yeah, don't load up software you, yourself, cannot review. But also at the same time, there's a whole thing of trust here that's going to need to be reviewed. Not, "Oh you can never trust Canonical ever again!" But a pretty straightforward systematic review of that trust:
- How did this happen?
- Where was this missed in the review?
- How can we prevent this particular thing that allowed this to happen in the future?
- How do we indicate this to the users?
- How do we empower them to verify that such has been done by Canonical?
No one should take this as "this is why you shouldn't trust Ubuntu!" Because as you and others have said, this could happen to anyone. This should be taken as a call for Canonical to review how they put things on snapcraft and what they can do to ensure users have all the tools so that they can ensure "at least for this specific issue" doesn't happen again. We cannot prevent every attack, but we can do our best to prevent repeating the same attack.
It's all about building trust. And yeah, Flathub and AppImageHub can, and should, take a lesson from this to preemptively prevent this kind of thing from happening there. I know there's a propensity to wag the finger in the distro wars, tribalism runs deep, but anything like this should be looked as an opportunity to review that very important aspect of "trust" by all. It's one of the reasons open source is very important, so that we can all openly learn from each other.
Nice try canonical - no matter what you say snaps is just your way to lock people in to your store. You’re no better than apple, only your product is shit. Excluding the shoulders you stand on, which are made by others. You’re the enshitification of Linux.
Why would you pull debs from random sites? Do you know how hard that is to do for the average user? And you want to compare that to a download from the store that’s in the basic install on Ubuntu?
When it does, we'll deal with it. But in the meantime, the motivation is important. Canonical developed and aggressively pushed Snaps despite most people hating them because... it made then more money.
It's happenend with the AUR too.
Snaps however have a certain expectation that newer/inexperienced users should be able to trust them.
If you are going to "be your own bank" you need some very basic computer security skills like:
- Research the reputation of the wallet you are going to use.
- Don't download wallets which aren't open source
- Download wallets from their official dev site, not some third party repo.
- Don't use Facebook search to find a wallet.
- If you are storing significant funds, use a multi-sig wallet.
- If you are not 100% confident in the security of a given wallet or system, send a smaller test transaction first before sending larger amounts
If you can't be trusted to do that, you need to pick a trusted custodian to manage access to your funds (you know, like banks), preferably somebody who can get an insurance company to under-write your no-opsec-having-ass. Unfortunately, in the crypto world, these trusted custodians few and far between and have a terrible track record with exchange collapses etc. It's getting better, but it's still a mess. Hopefully as time goes on and the industry gets better regulated and more mature, this will be an easier thing to do.
The more I learn about web3/crypto, it is increasingly getting closer to real life financials with all the same pitfalls and extra crypto problems
Yeah, I recommend looking up the most popular hardware wallet and downloading their app from the website. Then doing a round-trip transaction in some currency like XLM.
sudo snap remove * && sudo apt purge -y snapd && sudo apt install -y gnome-software-plug-flatpak
until you feel like hopping
I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps I hate snaps
i've been saying this for years, ubuntu = bad. Use literally anything else (except Windows lol), no other major distro comes with Snap pre-installed.
As someone who has been using Ubuntu for 10 years, I am sad that I don't know more about the intricacies of Linux.
I know more than I did 10 years ago... But probably would really be uncomfortable running arch.
I think I will install Debian 24.04 as my desktop (daily driver) this year and be done with Ubuntu. Hopefully I learn some more and eventually try out Arch on my laptop.
There is no Debian 24.
Just install Linux Mint or maybe even Fedora
I'm considering trying Mint Debian Edition once my new laptop arrives (pre-ordered Framework 16)
You can also play with it in a virtual machine. It won't give you quite the same experience for your specific hardware, but you will get a feel for how it works, especially the package manager etc.
Check out MX. It's Debian, but it has some improvements for desktop use.
I like Mint for Ubuntu's simplicity without Canonical's bullshit
Just last week I was arguing with a bunch of #ubuntu fan boys here about how that system prevents you from learning, how Debian is a tiny bit better, but with arch/based systems you both have a reliable daily runner and be able to learn as much as you can take.
The more you learn the more aggravating debians (mint-ubuntus) become, forcing their choices on you. Arch respects and rewards people who want to do it their way. They provide the blocks, you build your system.
Lol
Don't read the community, post all news you see.
They should have put a stop on all crypto apps as soon as the last debacle hit. Each one should have been checked and tested before being released back into the store. Like it or not, people trust these stores when they shouldn't, nobody reads the T&Cs that tell them the store takes no responsibility for the shit in them. I think these stores should take some responsibility for what appears in them - especially apps relating to money management/wallets. Canonical (hopefully) are taking a reputational hit at the moment, and so they should. If you can't run a store properly don't have a store.
People scammed out of money sometimes kill themselves. Grrr Canonical.
Apps aren't even distributed via snap or flatpak. we have the option to install software we need and compile those are snap or flatpak only.
I don't understand why people are so hell bent on hating Snaps. The architecture is literally better than Flatpak -- and I'm quite sure it's possible to run one's own Snap host. Some people say they're bloated and slow, well not anymore than Flatpak (actually less) and people love that?
The architecture is literally better than Flatpak
Why?
I don’t understand why people are so hell bent on hating Snaps.
Every single time I tried snaps in the last years I had a bad time. Either they were slow to start, refused to work (Docker snap) or made my machine boot significantly slower. Granted, I haven't bothered in a year or so.
At this point they just released unfinished software that was not ready for production, forced it onto people and are surprised when everybody remembers snap as being partially closed source, slow and unreliable. Even if it's not now, that's how the first impression was and it's going to stick forever.
Refer to an earlier post on the downsides of flatpak, Snap basically doesn't have a lot of those issues other than the fundamental ones regarding a canonical far package
You may have used Snaps when they used XZ compression. XZ is a stellar compressor, but for static data. It compresses better at the cost of being slower, nowadays Snaps use fast algorithms tuned for faster decompression, so it starts a lot faster.
For me the main argument is the repo side being proprietary.
I hate them because they make Ubuntu useless for a desktop in an enterprise environment. Snaps have a bug where they will NOT open with a network home directory, which is common for a business ... And now they've made Firefox snap only.
So for a business environment: you can't even open the included web browser. WTF?
Do you understand now?