On 12/21/06, Mark Clements <gmane(a)kennel17.co.uk> wrote:
Well, in that case it would be very dangerous if the
import option allowed
importers to delete from the source wiki, and single-user sign-on does not
help in this case. Either the user isn't verified, in which case users of
the remote wiki can delete WP content willy nilly (even if not registered),
or the importer has to enter their Wikipedia username & password at the
target wiki, and thus give these details to the administrator of that wiki
(or a malicious extension writer).
I don't understand the difficulty.
1) You log in on Wiki A. Your username and password are the same as
on Wiki B, since SUL is implemented, so no security breach occurs.
2) You say, through Wiki A's interface, that you would like to delete
an image from Wiki B. Wiki A passes your username and password to
Wiki B for authentication; since they're the same on both wikis, Wiki
B will accept them and check if you're a sysop on Wiki B.
3) If you are, the image is deleted, and Wiki B tells Wiki A to
acknowledge the deletion. Otherwise it tells Wiki A to return an
error.
There can't be any security breach if the two wikis share the same
database for usernames and passwords (i.e., SUL). If they don't, this
doesn't have to work, but if it did, you could directly (but
invisibly) connect to Wiki A and give it your cookie if you're already
logged in there.