Comment Re:If it's accessing your X server, it's elevated (Score 1) 375
Oh how about a new protocol extension that allows one designated program to receive all keyboard inputs regardless of any other grabs. The X11 server can keep on pretending that the other grabbers still have such a grab.
I'm not really sure how creating yet another way for a "designated program" to monitor input events is supposed to address the problem that any X11 client can monitor keyboard events on any window in the absence of a grab, unless you intend to rewrite all existing software to grab the keyboard on receiving input focus, and force all the desktop environments to implement support for the extension and move their global keybindings into a specially designated client. At that point you might was well switch to a system designed for secure I/O from day one—like Wayland.
Look: X11 works on Windows even though windows can apparently REALLY gab the keyboard. X11 will we are told work on Wayland too despite the fact that wayland can apparently REALLY grab they keyboard. Do you really think it couldn't be extended to do that itself?
It's no different with a rootless X server on Windows. Input received by any X window can be observed by any X client, unless one client grabs the input. XWayland will probably work the same way, with native Wayland clients secure from each other and from X11 clients but no isolation between X11 clients and no support for grabbing input directed at non-X11 windows. XWayland is meant as a shim between the Wayland compositor and ordinary X clients; it doesn't support external window managers and isn't expected to host a full X11 desktop environment. You wouldn't run something like a screen locker as an X11 client under XWayland. It wouldn't be secure, for the same reasons that screen lockers aren't secure under X11 now, and similar compatibility problems would occur if you tried to implement the Wayland input model with X11 extensions.
It's easy to implement the insecure X11 model on top of a secure system. The reverse is much more difficult.