[tahoe-lafs-trac-stream] [tahoe-lafs] #1665: Brainstorm webapi vulnerabilities between the operator and a user and between users.

[tahoe-lafs]

#1665: Brainstorm webapi vulnerabilities between the operator and a user and
between users.
-----------------------------------+-----------------------
     Reporter:  nejucomo           |      Owner:
         Type:  task               |     Status:  new
     Priority:  major              |  Milestone:  undecided
    Component:  code-frontend-web  |    Version:  n/a
   Resolution:                     |   Keywords:
Launchpad Bug:                     |
-----------------------------------+-----------------------

Comment (by nejucomo):

 '''User vulnerabilities to the gateway.'''

 Fundamentally, a web gateway is an entity-in-the-middle, so users are
 vulnerable to:

 * Every capability (and transitively reachable capability) is leaked to
 the gateway.
 * A stock web browser won't perform any integrity checks, so the gateway
 can arbitrarily modify content.
 * The gateway decrypts content, so the user has no confidentiality
 guarantees against the gateway.

 These vulnerabilities compromise much of the utility of LAFS; never-the-
 less, the usefulness of making content available to public web users
 (without any custom software) is great enough that there's demand for a
 "public gateway".

 '''Mitigation brainstorm''': The situation could potentially improved by
 moving integrity and confidentiality support into the browser- if for
 example the user loaded javascript from a trusted site, which could then
 proxy encrypted requests through different HTTP interfaces to the
 underlying LAFS network.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1665#comment:2>
tahoe-lafs <https://tahoe-lafs.org>
secure decentralized storage