What ways are there to include user-edited JavaScript in a wiki page?
I ask because someone put this revision in (which is now deleted):
https://fa.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D9%85%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%88%DB...
You can't see it now, but it was someone including a JavaScript cryptocurrency miner in common.js!
Obviously this is not going to be a common thing, and common.js is closely watched. (The above edit was reverted in 7 minutes, and the user banned.)
But what are the ways to get user-edited JavaScript running on a MediaWiki, outside one's own personal usage? And what permissions are needed? I ask with threats like this in mind.
- d.
editinterface (usually only available to sysops on wmf wikis) is required to edit MediaWiki: namespace, which includes MediaWiki:(blah).css/js. And edituser(css/js) is required to edit other user’s CSS/JS files. In fawiki case, these permissions are available in template editor, so once he became one of template editor (I don’t know how strict fawiki rule is, so no comment on there) he was able to inject such evil thing (tm).
TL;DR:
1. editinterface to modify MediaWiki: namespace, which affects everyone. 2. edituserjs to touch other user’s js. 3. editusercss to touch other user’s css.
-- Yongmin Sent from my iPhone https://wp.revi.blog Text licensed under CC BY ND 2.0 KR Please note that this address is list-only address and any non-mailing list mails will be treated as spam. Please use https://encrypt.to/0x947f156f16250de39788c3c35b625da5beff197a
2018. 3. 14. 22:25, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com 작성:
What ways are there to include user-edited JavaScript in a wiki page?
I ask because someone put this revision in (which is now deleted):
https://fa.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D9%85%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%88%DB...
You can't see it now, but it was someone including a JavaScript cryptocurrency miner in common.js!
Obviously this is not going to be a common thing, and common.js is closely watched. (The above edit was reverted in 7 minutes, and the user banned.)
But what are the ways to get user-edited JavaScript running on a MediaWiki, outside one's own personal usage? And what permissions are needed? I ask with threats like this in mind.
- d.
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Wednesday, March 14, 2018, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
What ways are there to include user-edited JavaScript in a wiki page?
I ask because someone put this revision in (which is now deleted):
https://fa.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D9%85%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%88%DB...
You can't see it now, but it was someone including a JavaScript cryptocurrency miner in common.js!
Obviously this is not going to be a common thing, and common.js is closely watched. (The above edit was reverted in 7 minutes, and the user banned.)
But what are the ways to get user-edited JavaScript running on a MediaWiki, outside one's own personal usage? And what permissions are needed? I ask with threats like this in mind.
- d.
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
You need editinterface, edituserjs, or some of the centralnotice related rights (or the steward related rights to give yourself these rights).
Any method that does not involve editinterface or a related right that is normally restricted to administrator (or higher group) should be considered a serious security issue in mediawiki and reported immediately.
-- Brian Wolff
In my opinion, such accounts should be globally blocked btw. It is a grave breach of trust and such accounts cannot be trusted anywhere else either. Thanks for playing, but goodbye for ever.
DJ
On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 3:42 PM, Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, March 14, 2018, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
What ways are there to include user-edited JavaScript in a wiki page?
I ask because someone put this revision in (which is now deleted):
https://fa.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D9%85%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%88%DB...
You can't see it now, but it was someone including a JavaScript cryptocurrency miner in common.js!
Obviously this is not going to be a common thing, and common.js is closely watched. (The above edit was reverted in 7 minutes, and the user banned.)
But what are the ways to get user-edited JavaScript running on a MediaWiki, outside one's own personal usage? And what permissions are needed? I ask with threats like this in mind.
- d.
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
You need editinterface, edituserjs, or some of the centralnotice related rights (or the steward related rights to give yourself these rights).
Any method that does not involve editinterface or a related right that is normally restricted to administrator (or higher group) should be considered a serious security issue in mediawiki and reported immediately.
-- Brian Wolff _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
That already happened and the user got blocked indefinitely immediately after the incident. The JS was there for seven minutes which bad enough IMO.
One thing is that Persian Wikipedia community is working to strip the right of editing mediawiki ns from the templateeditor user group: https://fa.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=22370489#%D9%86%D8%B8%D8%B1%D8%AE...
Other things include protecting us from this type of js inside the mediawiki. That's going to be difficult.
Best
On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 4:59 PM Derk-Jan Hartman < d.j.hartman+wmf_ml@gmail.com> wrote:
In my opinion, such accounts should be globally blocked btw. It is a grave breach of trust and such accounts cannot be trusted anywhere else either. Thanks for playing, but goodbye for ever.
DJ
On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 3:42 PM, Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, March 14, 2018, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
What ways are there to include user-edited JavaScript in a wiki page?
I ask because someone put this revision in (which is now deleted):
https://fa.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D9%85%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%88%DB...
You can't see it now, but it was someone including a JavaScript cryptocurrency miner in common.js!
Obviously this is not going to be a common thing, and common.js is closely watched. (The above edit was reverted in 7 minutes, and the user banned.)
But what are the ways to get user-edited JavaScript running on a MediaWiki, outside one's own personal usage? And what permissions are needed? I ask with threats like this in mind.
- d.
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
You need editinterface, edituserjs, or some of the centralnotice related rights (or the steward related rights to give yourself these rights).
Any method that does not involve editinterface or a related right that is normally restricted to administrator (or higher group) should be
considered
a serious security issue in mediawiki and reported immediately.
-- Brian Wolff _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
A restrictive script-src in a Content-Security-Policy (RFC https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Content-Security-Policy, T135963 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T135963) could have helped with this. Alternatively, a report-mode CSP could at least have brought this to global operators’ attention, though I don’t know if they would’ve been faster to react than the fawiki community’s seven minutes.
Cheers, Lucas
2018-03-14 17:03 GMT+01:00 Amir Ladsgroup ladsgroup@gmail.com:
That already happened and the user got blocked indefinitely immediately after the incident. The JS was there for seven minutes which bad enough IMO.
One thing is that Persian Wikipedia community is working to strip the right of editing mediawiki ns from the templateeditor user group: https://fa.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=22370489#%D9% 86%D8%B8%D8%B1%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%87%DB%8C_%D8%A8%D8%B1% D8%A7%DB%8C_%DA%AF%D8%B1%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%86_%D8%AF%D8%B3% D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%B3%DB%8C_%D9%88%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8% B4_%D9%81%D8%B6%D8%A7%DB%8C_%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%85_%D9%85%D8% AF%DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%88%DB%8C%DA%A9%DB%8C_%D8%A7%D8%B2_%D9%88% DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B4%DA%AF%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8% A7%D9%84%DA%AF%D9%88
Other things include protecting us from this type of js inside the mediawiki. That's going to be difficult.
Best
On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 4:59 PM Derk-Jan Hartman < d.j.hartman+wmf_ml@gmail.com> wrote:
In my opinion, such accounts should be globally blocked btw. It is a grave breach of trust and such accounts cannot be trusted anywhere else either. Thanks for playing, but goodbye for ever.
DJ
On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 3:42 PM, Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, March 14, 2018, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
What ways are there to include user-edited JavaScript in a wiki page?
I ask because someone put this revision in (which is now deleted):
DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%88%DB%8C%DA%A9%DB%8C:Common.js&diff=next& oldid=22367460&uselang=en
You can't see it now, but it was someone including a JavaScript cryptocurrency miner in common.js!
Obviously this is not going to be a common thing, and common.js is closely watched. (The above edit was reverted in 7 minutes, and the user banned.)
But what are the ways to get user-edited JavaScript running on a MediaWiki, outside one's own personal usage? And what permissions are needed? I ask with threats like this in mind.
- d.
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
You need editinterface, edituserjs, or some of the centralnotice
related
rights (or the steward related rights to give yourself these rights).
Any method that does not involve editinterface or a related right that
is
normally restricted to administrator (or higher group) should be
considered
a serious security issue in mediawiki and reported immediately.
-- Brian Wolff _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
It has always made me a little uneasy that there are wiki pages where JavaScript could potentially be injected into my page without my approval. To be honest if I had the option I would disable all site and user scripts for my account.
Has this sort of thing happened before?
Can we be sure there isn't a gadget, interface page that has this sort of code lurking inside? Do we have any detection measures in place?
Even if every edit to these pages is watched I suspect it would be very easy for the same attack to be done in a more sophisticated way e.g. disguising the code as a base64 image for example
On Wed, 14 Mar 2018 at 07:42 Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, March 14, 2018, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
What ways are there to include user-edited JavaScript in a wiki page?
I ask because someone put this revision in (which is now deleted):
https://fa.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D9%85%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%88%DB...
You can't see it now, but it was someone including a JavaScript cryptocurrency miner in common.js!
Obviously this is not going to be a common thing, and common.js is closely watched. (The above edit was reverted in 7 minutes, and the user banned.)
But what are the ways to get user-edited JavaScript running on a MediaWiki, outside one's own personal usage? And what permissions are needed? I ask with threats like this in mind.
- d.
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
You need editinterface, edituserjs, or some of the centralnotice related rights (or the steward related rights to give yourself these rights).
Any method that does not involve editinterface or a related right that is normally restricted to administrator (or higher group) should be considered a serious security issue in mediawiki and reported immediately.
-- Brian Wolff _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 9:14 AM, Jon Robson jdlrobson@gmail.com wrote:
It has always made me a little uneasy that there are wiki pages where JavaScript could potentially be injected into my page without my approval. To be honest if I had the option I would disable all site and user scripts for my account.
It's not particularly hard to with a browser extension, you just need to edit ResourceLoader (load.php) URLs and remove the 'user', 'site', 'ext.gadget.*' modules.
Has this sort of thing happened before?
Outside Wikimedia, plenty. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43025788 was one of the more high-profile examples.
On Wikimedia wikis, well-intentioned but misguided uses of external scripts are not uncommon (back when I was a fairly new admin on the Hungarian Wikipedia, we included an AWStats counter in the page footer under an, uh, fairly liberal interpretation of the terms of use... the developers were not amused). As far as I am aware there was no malicious one.
David Gerard wrote:
What ways are there to include user-edited JavaScript in a wiki page?
[...]
You can't see it now, but it was someone including a JavaScript cryptocurrency miner in common.js!
Obviously this is not going to be a common thing, and common.js is closely watched. (The above edit was reverted in 7 minutes, and the user banned.)
But what are the ways to get user-edited JavaScript running on a MediaWiki, outside one's own personal usage? And what permissions are needed? I ask with threats like this in mind.
There's an old post of mine that documents some of the ways to inject site-wide JavaScript: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-August/073787.html
I believe, as Brian notes in this thread, that most methods require having the "editinterface" user right so that you can edit wiki pages in the "MediaWiki" namespace. By default, this user right is assigned to the "sysop" user group, but if you search through https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/InitialiseSettings.php.txt for the string "editinterface", you can see that on specific wikis such as fawiki, this user right has been assigned to additional user groups.
Jon Robson wrote:
It has always made me a little uneasy that there are wiki pages where JavaScript could potentially be injected into my page without my approval. To be honest if I had the option I would disable all site and user scripts for my account.
You could file a Phabricator task about this. We already specifically exempt certain pages, such as Special:UserLogin and Special:Preferences, from injecting custom JavaScript. We could potentially add a user preference to do what you're suggesting.
That said, you're currently executing thousands upon thousands of lines of code on your computer that you've never read or verified. If you're a standard computer user, you visit hundreds of Web sites per year that each execute thousands of lines of untrusted scripts that you've never read or verified. Of all the places you're likely to run into trouble, Wikimedia wikis are, in many ways, some of the safest. Given all of this code, your computer, as well as mine, are vulnerable to dozens of very real attacks at any time. And yet we soldier on without too much panic or worry.
Has this sort of thing happened before?
Salon.com recently prompted users with ad blocking software installed to voluntarily mine cryptocurrency: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1259653. This situation on fa.wikipedia.org was obviously involuntary. I don't know of any similar incidents. We have had wiki administrators inadvertently inject scripts with privacy issues, such as Google Analytics. These scripts have generally been promptly removed when noticed. On the other hand, pages such as https://status.wikimedia.org/ have been loading the same problematic scripts (Google Analytics and JavaScript from ajax.googleapis.com) for years and nobody seems to have cared enough yet.
Can we be sure there isn't a gadget, interface page that has this sort of code lurking inside? Do we have any detection measures in place?
A much surer bet is that at least some gadgets and other site-wide JavaScript have privacy issues and potentially security issues. It would be shocking if, across the hundreds of Wikimedia wikis, none of them did.
I think in the past Timo and maybe Alex Monk have done some surveying of public Wikimedia wikis using a browser or browser emulator to check if there are network requests being made to non-Wikimedia domains. As Lucas noted in this thread already, there are also tasks such as https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T135963 that could be worked on, if there's sufficient interest.
MZMcBride
Lego already did a script to verify no external resources are loaded: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T71519 I think there is a Jenkins job running it on regular basis
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 6:30 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
What ways are there to include user-edited JavaScript in a wiki page?
[...]
You can't see it now, but it was someone including a JavaScript cryptocurrency miner in common.js!
Obviously this is not going to be a common thing, and common.js is closely watched. (The above edit was reverted in 7 minutes, and the user banned.)
But what are the ways to get user-edited JavaScript running on a MediaWiki, outside one's own personal usage? And what permissions are needed? I ask with threats like this in mind.
There's an old post of mine that documents some of the ways to inject site-wide JavaScript: <https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-August/073787.html
I believe, as Brian notes in this thread, that most methods require having the "editinterface" user right so that you can edit wiki pages in the "MediaWiki" namespace. By default, this user right is assigned to the "sysop" user group, but if you search through https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/InitialiseSettings.php.txt for the string "editinterface", you can see that on specific wikis such as fawiki, this user right has been assigned to additional user groups.
Jon Robson wrote:
It has always made me a little uneasy that there are wiki pages where JavaScript could potentially be injected into my page without my approval. To be honest if I had the option I would disable all site and user scripts for my account.
You could file a Phabricator task about this. We already specifically exempt certain pages, such as Special:UserLogin and Special:Preferences, from injecting custom JavaScript. We could potentially add a user preference to do what you're suggesting.
That said, you're currently executing thousands upon thousands of lines of code on your computer that you've never read or verified. If you're a standard computer user, you visit hundreds of Web sites per year that each execute thousands of lines of untrusted scripts that you've never read or verified. Of all the places you're likely to run into trouble, Wikimedia wikis are, in many ways, some of the safest. Given all of this code, your computer, as well as mine, are vulnerable to dozens of very real attacks at any time. And yet we soldier on without too much panic or worry.
Has this sort of thing happened before?
Salon.com recently prompted users with ad blocking software installed to voluntarily mine cryptocurrency: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1259653. This situation on fa.wikipedia.org was obviously involuntary. I don't know of any similar incidents. We have had wiki administrators inadvertently inject scripts with privacy issues, such as Google Analytics. These scripts have generally been promptly removed when noticed. On the other hand, pages such as https://status.wikimedia.org/ have been loading the same problematic scripts (Google Analytics and JavaScript from ajax.googleapis.com) for years and nobody seems to have cared enough yet.
Can we be sure there isn't a gadget, interface page that has this sort of code lurking inside? Do we have any detection measures in place?
A much surer bet is that at least some gadgets and other site-wide JavaScript have privacy issues and potentially security issues. It would be shocking if, across the hundreds of Wikimedia wikis, none of them did.
I think in the past Timo and maybe Alex Monk have done some surveying of public Wikimedia wikis using a browser or browser emulator to check if there are network requests being made to non-Wikimedia domains. As Lucas noted in this thread already, there are also tasks such as https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T135963 that could be worked on, if there's sufficient interest.
MZMcBride
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Sorry to slightly sidetrack this discussion, but someone recently asked me if it were possible to modify a steward's user JS so that it granted them advanced rights like steward/checkuser/oversight. This of course is possible, but very rare since you need to be a sysop to edit these JS pages. The point this person was making to me however was that on smaller wikis it can be easy to become a sysop, and it's probable that by nature stewards will show up there occasionally, and that their own personal JS may not be closely watched. I told them not to worry about it, but if we really wanted to do something, we could make a steward's JS only be mutable by other stewards (or something).
Maybe something else to think about?
~Leon
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 5:46 PM, Eran Rosenthal eranroz89@gmail.com wrote:
Lego already did a script to verify no external resources are loaded: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T71519 I think there is a Jenkins job running it on regular basis
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 6:30 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
What ways are there to include user-edited JavaScript in a wiki page?
[...]
You can't see it now, but it was someone including a JavaScript cryptocurrency miner in common.js!
Obviously this is not going to be a common thing, and common.js is closely watched. (The above edit was reverted in 7 minutes, and the user banned.)
But what are the ways to get user-edited JavaScript running on a MediaWiki, outside one's own personal usage? And what permissions are needed? I ask with threats like this in mind.
There's an old post of mine that documents some of the ways to inject site-wide JavaScript: <https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-
August/073787.html
I believe, as Brian notes in this thread, that most methods require
having
the "editinterface" user right so that you can edit wiki pages in the "MediaWiki" namespace. By default, this user right is assigned to the "sysop" user group, but if you search through https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/InitialiseSettings.php.txt for the
string
"editinterface", you can see that on specific wikis such as fawiki, this user right has been assigned to additional user groups.
Jon Robson wrote:
It has always made me a little uneasy that there are wiki pages where JavaScript could potentially be injected into my page without my
approval.
To be honest if I had the option I would disable all site and user
scripts
for my account.
You could file a Phabricator task about this. We already specifically exempt certain pages, such as Special:UserLogin and Special:Preferences, from injecting custom JavaScript. We could potentially add a user preference to do what you're suggesting.
That said, you're currently executing thousands upon thousands of lines
of
code on your computer that you've never read or verified. If you're a standard computer user, you visit hundreds of Web sites per year that
each
execute thousands of lines of untrusted scripts that you've never read or verified. Of all the places you're likely to run into trouble, Wikimedia wikis are, in many ways, some of the safest. Given all of this code, your computer, as well as mine, are vulnerable to dozens of very real attacks at any time. And yet we soldier on without too much panic or worry.
Has this sort of thing happened before?
Salon.com recently prompted users with ad blocking software installed to voluntarily mine cryptocurrency: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1259653. This situation on fa.wikipedia.org was obviously involuntary. I don't
know
of any similar incidents. We have had wiki administrators inadvertently inject scripts with privacy issues, such as Google Analytics. These scripts have generally been promptly removed when noticed. On the other hand, pages such as https://status.wikimedia.org/ have been loading
the
same problematic scripts (Google Analytics and JavaScript from ajax.googleapis.com) for years and nobody seems to have cared enough
yet.
Can we be sure there isn't a gadget, interface page that has this sort
of
code lurking inside? Do we have any detection measures in place?
A much surer bet is that at least some gadgets and other site-wide JavaScript have privacy issues and potentially security issues. It would be shocking if, across the hundreds of Wikimedia wikis, none of them did.
I think in the past Timo and maybe Alex Monk have done some surveying of public Wikimedia wikis using a browser or browser emulator to check if there are network requests being made to non-Wikimedia domains. As Lucas noted in this thread already, there are also tasks such as https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T135963 that could be worked on, if there's sufficient interest.
MZMcBride
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Musikanimal, that sounds like a good suggestion to add to Phabricator.
I hope that there is way that these suggestions are being tracked but I don't see a public task for this on the Security workboard, possibly to avoid announcing vulnerabilities in public until they have been assessed. Unless someone here has advice to the contrary, I think that going to Phabricator and submitting a new security bug, which will be nonpublic by default, would be a reasonable option.
Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 10:33 AM, Leon Ziemba musikanimal@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sorry to slightly sidetrack this discussion, but someone recently asked me if it were possible to modify a steward's user JS so that it granted them advanced rights like steward/checkuser/oversight. This of course is possible, but very rare since you need to be a sysop to edit these JS pages. The point this person was making to me however was that on smaller wikis it can be easy to become a sysop, and it's probable that by nature stewards will show up there occasionally, and that their own personal JS may not be closely watched. I told them not to worry about it, but if we really wanted to do something, we could make a steward's JS only be mutable by other stewards (or something).
Maybe something else to think about?
~Leon
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 5:46 PM, Eran Rosenthal eranroz89@gmail.com wrote:
Lego already did a script to verify no external resources are loaded: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T71519 I think there is a Jenkins job running it on regular basis
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 6:30 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
What ways are there to include user-edited JavaScript in a wiki page?
[...]
You can't see it now, but it was someone including a JavaScript cryptocurrency miner in common.js!
Obviously this is not going to be a common thing, and common.js is closely watched. (The above edit was reverted in 7 minutes, and the user banned.)
But what are the ways to get user-edited JavaScript running on a MediaWiki, outside one's own personal usage? And what permissions are needed? I ask with threats like this in mind.
There's an old post of mine that documents some of the ways to inject site-wide JavaScript: <https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-
August/073787.html
I believe, as Brian notes in this thread, that most methods require
having
the "editinterface" user right so that you can edit wiki pages in the "MediaWiki" namespace. By default, this user right is assigned to the "sysop" user group, but if you search through https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/InitialiseSettings.php.txt for the
string
"editinterface", you can see that on specific wikis such as fawiki,
this
user right has been assigned to additional user groups.
Jon Robson wrote:
It has always made me a little uneasy that there are wiki pages where JavaScript could potentially be injected into my page without my
approval.
To be honest if I had the option I would disable all site and user
scripts
for my account.
You could file a Phabricator task about this. We already specifically exempt certain pages, such as Special:UserLogin and
Special:Preferences,
from injecting custom JavaScript. We could potentially add a user preference to do what you're suggesting.
That said, you're currently executing thousands upon thousands of lines
of
code on your computer that you've never read or verified. If you're a standard computer user, you visit hundreds of Web sites per year that
each
execute thousands of lines of untrusted scripts that you've never read
or
verified. Of all the places you're likely to run into trouble,
Wikimedia
wikis are, in many ways, some of the safest. Given all of this code,
your
computer, as well as mine, are vulnerable to dozens of very real
attacks
at any time. And yet we soldier on without too much panic or worry.
Has this sort of thing happened before?
Salon.com recently prompted users with ad blocking software installed
to
voluntarily mine cryptocurrency: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1259653. This situation on fa.wikipedia.org was obviously involuntary. I don't
know
of any similar incidents. We have had wiki administrators inadvertently inject scripts with privacy issues, such as Google Analytics. These scripts have generally been promptly removed when noticed. On the other hand, pages such as https://status.wikimedia.org/ have been loading
the
same problematic scripts (Google Analytics and JavaScript from ajax.googleapis.com) for years and nobody seems to have cared enough
yet.
Can we be sure there isn't a gadget, interface page that has this sort
of
code lurking inside? Do we have any detection measures in place?
A much surer bet is that at least some gadgets and other site-wide JavaScript have privacy issues and potentially security issues. It
would
be shocking if, across the hundreds of Wikimedia wikis, none of them
did.
I think in the past Timo and maybe Alex Monk have done some surveying
of
public Wikimedia wikis using a browser or browser emulator to check if there are network requests being made to non-Wikimedia domains. As
Lucas
noted in this thread already, there are also tasks such as https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T135963 that could be worked on,
if
there's sufficient interest.
MZMcBride
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
You'd have to stop stewards from loading site-wide JS, gadgets, as well as removing their ability to have their user JS from pulling in JS from other sites/users/etc. somehow.
Trying to restrict it would probably lead to a backlash from communities that would make superprotect look like a joke. I suspect that if such a feature were proposed today, it would never be given to local users, but reserved for globally trusted people like developers. Local sysops are not necessarily (or maybe even usually) technically skilled, and communities do not appear to realise the amount of power that editinterface actually gives you, and that code written with it may frequently be executed by people with rights that the community would consider superior, like steward/oversight/checkuser/bureaucrat.
I would not tell them not to worry about it.
On Fri, 16 Mar 2018, 17:33 Leon Ziemba, musikanimal@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sorry to slightly sidetrack this discussion, but someone recently asked me if it were possible to modify a steward's user JS so that it granted them advanced rights like steward/checkuser/oversight. This of course is possible, but very rare since you need to be a sysop to edit these JS pages. The point this person was making to me however was that on smaller wikis it can be easy to become a sysop, and it's probable that by nature stewards will show up there occasionally, and that their own personal JS may not be closely watched. I told them not to worry about it, but if we really wanted to do something, we could make a steward's JS only be mutable by other stewards (or something).
Maybe something else to think about?
~Leon
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 5:46 PM, Eran Rosenthal eranroz89@gmail.com wrote:
Lego already did a script to verify no external resources are loaded: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T71519 I think there is a Jenkins job running it on regular basis
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 6:30 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
What ways are there to include user-edited JavaScript in a wiki page?
[...]
You can't see it now, but it was someone including a JavaScript cryptocurrency miner in common.js!
Obviously this is not going to be a common thing, and common.js is closely watched. (The above edit was reverted in 7 minutes, and the user banned.)
But what are the ways to get user-edited JavaScript running on a MediaWiki, outside one's own personal usage? And what permissions are needed? I ask with threats like this in mind.
There's an old post of mine that documents some of the ways to inject site-wide JavaScript: <https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-
August/073787.html
I believe, as Brian notes in this thread, that most methods require
having
the "editinterface" user right so that you can edit wiki pages in the "MediaWiki" namespace. By default, this user right is assigned to the "sysop" user group, but if you search through https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/InitialiseSettings.php.txt for the
string
"editinterface", you can see that on specific wikis such as fawiki,
this
user right has been assigned to additional user groups.
Jon Robson wrote:
It has always made me a little uneasy that there are wiki pages where JavaScript could potentially be injected into my page without my
approval.
To be honest if I had the option I would disable all site and user
scripts
for my account.
You could file a Phabricator task about this. We already specifically exempt certain pages, such as Special:UserLogin and
Special:Preferences,
from injecting custom JavaScript. We could potentially add a user preference to do what you're suggesting.
That said, you're currently executing thousands upon thousands of lines
of
code on your computer that you've never read or verified. If you're a standard computer user, you visit hundreds of Web sites per year that
each
execute thousands of lines of untrusted scripts that you've never read
or
verified. Of all the places you're likely to run into trouble,
Wikimedia
wikis are, in many ways, some of the safest. Given all of this code,
your
computer, as well as mine, are vulnerable to dozens of very real
attacks
at any time. And yet we soldier on without too much panic or worry.
Has this sort of thing happened before?
Salon.com recently prompted users with ad blocking software installed
to
voluntarily mine cryptocurrency: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1259653. This situation on fa.wikipedia.org was obviously involuntary. I don't
know
of any similar incidents. We have had wiki administrators inadvertently inject scripts with privacy issues, such as Google Analytics. These scripts have generally been promptly removed when noticed. On the other hand, pages such as https://status.wikimedia.org/ have been loading
the
same problematic scripts (Google Analytics and JavaScript from ajax.googleapis.com) for years and nobody seems to have cared enough
yet.
Can we be sure there isn't a gadget, interface page that has this sort
of
code lurking inside? Do we have any detection measures in place?
A much surer bet is that at least some gadgets and other site-wide JavaScript have privacy issues and potentially security issues. It
would
be shocking if, across the hundreds of Wikimedia wikis, none of them
did.
I think in the past Timo and maybe Alex Monk have done some surveying
of
public Wikimedia wikis using a browser or browser emulator to check if there are network requests being made to non-Wikimedia domains. As
Lucas
noted in this thread already, there are also tasks such as https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T135963 that could be worked on,
if
there's sufficient interest.
MZMcBride
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Pine wrote:
I hope that there is way that these suggestions are being tracked but I don't see a public task for this on the Security workboard, possibly to avoid announcing vulnerabilities in public until they have been assessed.
There is the https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T71445 that talks about implementing code-review for JS and CSS.
Alex Monk wrote:
Trying to restrict it would probably lead to a backlash from communities that would make superprotect look like a joke. I suspect that if such a feature were proposed today, it would never be given to local users, but reserved for globally trusted people like developers. Local sysops are not necessarily (or maybe even usually) technically skilled, and communities do not appear to realise the amount of power that editinterface actually gives you, and that code written with it may frequently be executed by people with rights that the community would consider superior, like steward/oversight/checkuser/bureaucrat.
I don't think the communities actually want js injected without code-review that much. They (we) do want to have easy access to gadget and scripts though. Attempting to impose any procedure that messes with that access and/or does not give the communities final say in what is used will probably have a serious backlash. But if we could have a reasonable code-review that does not mean communities will not have access to gadgets and scripts, it will probably pass with most of the communities not caring.
That does mean, in my view, that a lot of inexistent infrastructure needs to be created though, including a centralized code repo for js and css for the wikis, some interface to review code.
What worries me most about such a change is small wikis keeping access to scripts and gadgets, it is already difficult for most of them to have access at the moment, the more hurdles we create the worse it will get. Arguably, automation is much more important in small communities than in large ones.
Chico Venancio
2018-03-17 14:57 GMT-03:00 Alex Monk krenair@gmail.com:
You'd have to stop stewards from loading site-wide JS, gadgets, as well as removing their ability to have their user JS from pulling in JS from other sites/users/etc. somehow.
Trying to restrict it would probably lead to a backlash from communities that would make superprotect look like a joke. I suspect that if such a feature were proposed today, it would never be given to local users, but reserved for globally trusted people like developers. Local sysops are not necessarily (or maybe even usually) technically skilled, and communities do not appear to realise the amount of power that editinterface actually gives you, and that code written with it may frequently be executed by people with rights that the community would consider superior, like steward/oversight/checkuser/bureaucrat.
I would not tell them not to worry about it.
On Fri, 16 Mar 2018, 17:33 Leon Ziemba, musikanimal@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sorry to slightly sidetrack this discussion, but someone recently asked
me
if it were possible to modify a steward's user JS so that it granted them advanced rights like steward/checkuser/oversight. This of course is possible, but very rare since you need to be a sysop to edit these JS pages. The point this person was making to me however was that on smaller wikis it can be easy to become a sysop, and it's probable that by nature stewards will show up there occasionally, and that their own personal JS may not be closely watched. I told them not to worry about it, but if we really wanted to do something, we could make a steward's JS only be
mutable
by other stewards (or something).
Maybe something else to think about?
~Leon
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 5:46 PM, Eran Rosenthal eranroz89@gmail.com wrote:
Lego already did a script to verify no external resources are loaded: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T71519 I think there is a Jenkins job running it on regular basis
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 6:30 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
What ways are there to include user-edited JavaScript in a wiki
page?
[...]
You can't see it now, but it was someone including a JavaScript cryptocurrency miner in common.js!
Obviously this is not going to be a common thing, and common.js is closely watched. (The above edit was reverted in 7 minutes, and the user banned.)
But what are the ways to get user-edited JavaScript running on a MediaWiki, outside one's own personal usage? And what permissions
are
needed? I ask with threats like this in mind.
There's an old post of mine that documents some of the ways to inject site-wide JavaScript: <https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-
August/073787.html
I believe, as Brian notes in this thread, that most methods require
having
the "editinterface" user right so that you can edit wiki pages in the "MediaWiki" namespace. By default, this user right is assigned to the "sysop" user group, but if you search through https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/InitialiseSettings.php.txt for the
string
"editinterface", you can see that on specific wikis such as fawiki,
this
user right has been assigned to additional user groups.
Jon Robson wrote:
It has always made me a little uneasy that there are wiki pages
where
JavaScript could potentially be injected into my page without my
approval.
To be honest if I had the option I would disable all site and user
scripts
for my account.
You could file a Phabricator task about this. We already specifically exempt certain pages, such as Special:UserLogin and
Special:Preferences,
from injecting custom JavaScript. We could potentially add a user preference to do what you're suggesting.
That said, you're currently executing thousands upon thousands of
lines
of
code on your computer that you've never read or verified. If you're a standard computer user, you visit hundreds of Web sites per year that
each
execute thousands of lines of untrusted scripts that you've never
read
or
verified. Of all the places you're likely to run into trouble,
Wikimedia
wikis are, in many ways, some of the safest. Given all of this code,
your
computer, as well as mine, are vulnerable to dozens of very real
attacks
at any time. And yet we soldier on without too much panic or worry.
Has this sort of thing happened before?
Salon.com recently prompted users with ad blocking software installed
to
voluntarily mine cryptocurrency: <https://arstechnica.com/?p=1259653
.
This situation on fa.wikipedia.org was obviously involuntary. I
don't
know
of any similar incidents. We have had wiki administrators
inadvertently
inject scripts with privacy issues, such as Google Analytics. These scripts have generally been promptly removed when noticed. On the
other
hand, pages such as https://status.wikimedia.org/ have been
loading
the
same problematic scripts (Google Analytics and JavaScript from ajax.googleapis.com) for years and nobody seems to have cared enough
yet.
Can we be sure there isn't a gadget, interface page that has this
sort
of
code lurking inside? Do we have any detection measures in place?
A much surer bet is that at least some gadgets and other site-wide JavaScript have privacy issues and potentially security issues. It
would
be shocking if, across the hundreds of Wikimedia wikis, none of them
did.
I think in the past Timo and maybe Alex Monk have done some surveying
of
public Wikimedia wikis using a browser or browser emulator to check
if
there are network requests being made to non-Wikimedia domains. As
Lucas
noted in this thread already, there are also tasks such as https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T135963 that could be worked on,
if
there's sufficient interest.
MZMcBride
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Sat, 17 Mar 2018, 18:16 Chico Venancio, chicocvenancio@gmail.com wrote:
Alex Monk wrote: I don't think the communities actually want js injected without code-review that much. They (we) do want to have easy access to gadget and scripts though. Attempting to impose any procedure that messes with that access and/or does not give the communities final say in what is used will probably have a serious backlash. But if we could have a reasonable code-review that does not mean communities will not have access to gadgets and scripts, it will probably pass with most of the communities not caring.
I'm not convinced that a solution acceptable to everyone exists. A code review system requiring approval of changes to more dangerous pages would probably have to allow local sysops to approve (for communities to accept it), but I don't see a code review system being useful unless the reviewers are chosen for technical skill and knowledge of Wikimedia coding conventions. And even if the large wikis were happy to have such a criteria, it's relatively easy for us to talk about that in English and German, but I think a lot of wikis in more obscure languages won't have enough people fitting that criteria.
On a side note. Have we looked recently at decoupling the site wide JS/CSS rights from the edit interface right ? It has always seemed a bit weird to me that we had both these things in MediaWiki namespace, but the more we are closing down raw HTML in MediaWiki namespace, the weirder it becomes. Even if we would assign those rights to mostly the same groups, it would give some more healthy options in the long term. We've made a similar split in the user namespace (for much more practical reasons of course). But I think that shouldn't stop us from doing the same for global stuff.. We could even consider finding some way to detect raw html messages and have them subject to the same right..
We have https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T120886 but i'm not sure if anyone gave it any serious consideration in the past 2,5 years..
DJ
On Sat, Mar 17, 2018 at 6:57 PM, Alex Monk krenair@gmail.com wrote:
You'd have to stop stewards from loading site-wide JS, gadgets, as well as removing their ability to have their user JS from pulling in JS from other sites/users/etc. somehow.
Trying to restrict it would probably lead to a backlash from communities that would make superprotect look like a joke. I suspect that if such a feature were proposed today, it would never be given to local users, but reserved for globally trusted people like developers. Local sysops are not necessarily (or maybe even usually) technically skilled, and communities do not appear to realise the amount of power that editinterface actually gives you, and that code written with it may frequently be executed by people with rights that the community would consider superior, like steward/oversight/checkuser/bureaucrat.
I would not tell them not to worry about it.
On Fri, 16 Mar 2018, 17:33 Leon Ziemba, musikanimal@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sorry to slightly sidetrack this discussion, but someone recently asked me if it were possible to modify a steward's user JS so that it granted them advanced rights like steward/checkuser/oversight. This of course is possible, but very rare since you need to be a sysop to edit these JS pages. The point this person was making to me however was that on smaller wikis it can be easy to become a sysop, and it's probable that by nature stewards will show up there occasionally, and that their own personal JS may not be closely watched. I told them not to worry about it, but if we really wanted to do something, we could make a steward's JS only be mutable by other stewards (or something).
Maybe something else to think about?
~Leon
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 5:46 PM, Eran Rosenthal eranroz89@gmail.com wrote:
Lego already did a script to verify no external resources are loaded: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T71519 I think there is a Jenkins job running it on regular basis
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 6:30 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
What ways are there to include user-edited JavaScript in a wiki page?
[...]
You can't see it now, but it was someone including a JavaScript cryptocurrency miner in common.js!
Obviously this is not going to be a common thing, and common.js is closely watched. (The above edit was reverted in 7 minutes, and the user banned.)
But what are the ways to get user-edited JavaScript running on a MediaWiki, outside one's own personal usage? And what permissions are needed? I ask with threats like this in mind.
There's an old post of mine that documents some of the ways to inject site-wide JavaScript: <https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-
August/073787.html
I believe, as Brian notes in this thread, that most methods require
having
the "editinterface" user right so that you can edit wiki pages in the "MediaWiki" namespace. By default, this user right is assigned to the "sysop" user group, but if you search through https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/InitialiseSettings.php.txt for the
string
"editinterface", you can see that on specific wikis such as fawiki,
this
user right has been assigned to additional user groups.
Jon Robson wrote:
It has always made me a little uneasy that there are wiki pages where JavaScript could potentially be injected into my page without my
approval.
To be honest if I had the option I would disable all site and user
scripts
for my account.
You could file a Phabricator task about this. We already specifically exempt certain pages, such as Special:UserLogin and
Special:Preferences,
from injecting custom JavaScript. We could potentially add a user preference to do what you're suggesting.
That said, you're currently executing thousands upon thousands of lines
of
code on your computer that you've never read or verified. If you're a standard computer user, you visit hundreds of Web sites per year that
each
execute thousands of lines of untrusted scripts that you've never read
or
verified. Of all the places you're likely to run into trouble,
Wikimedia
wikis are, in many ways, some of the safest. Given all of this code,
your
computer, as well as mine, are vulnerable to dozens of very real
attacks
at any time. And yet we soldier on without too much panic or worry.
Has this sort of thing happened before?
Salon.com recently prompted users with ad blocking software installed
to
voluntarily mine cryptocurrency: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1259653. This situation on fa.wikipedia.org was obviously involuntary. I don't
know
of any similar incidents. We have had wiki administrators inadvertently inject scripts with privacy issues, such as Google Analytics. These scripts have generally been promptly removed when noticed. On the other hand, pages such as https://status.wikimedia.org/ have been loading
the
same problematic scripts (Google Analytics and JavaScript from ajax.googleapis.com) for years and nobody seems to have cared enough
yet.
Can we be sure there isn't a gadget, interface page that has this sort
of
code lurking inside? Do we have any detection measures in place?
A much surer bet is that at least some gadgets and other site-wide JavaScript have privacy issues and potentially security issues. It
would
be shocking if, across the hundreds of Wikimedia wikis, none of them
did.
I think in the past Timo and maybe Alex Monk have done some surveying
of
public Wikimedia wikis using a browser or browser emulator to check if there are network requests being made to non-Wikimedia domains. As
Lucas
noted in this thread already, there are also tasks such as https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T135963 that could be worked on,
if
there's sufficient interest.
MZMcBride
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
This is particularly important for non-Wikimedia instances of MediaWiki, by the way.
(e.g. on RationalWiki there's a cultural thing of "everyone is a sysop!" but the interface/JS editing rights are restricted to a much smaller "tech" group who are trusted not to be silly)
- d.
On 19 March 2018 at 08:51, Derk-Jan Hartman d.j.hartman+wmf_ml@gmail.com wrote:
On a side note. Have we looked recently at decoupling the site wide JS/CSS rights from the edit interface right ? It has always seemed a bit weird to me that we had both these things in MediaWiki namespace, but the more we are closing down raw HTML in MediaWiki namespace, the weirder it becomes. Even if we would assign those rights to mostly the same groups, it would give some more healthy options in the long term. We've made a similar split in the user namespace (for much more practical reasons of course). But I think that shouldn't stop us from doing the same for global stuff.. We could even consider finding some way to detect raw html messages and have them subject to the same right..
We have https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T120886 but i'm not sure if anyone gave it any serious consideration in the past 2,5 years..
DJ
On Sat, Mar 17, 2018 at 6:57 PM, Alex Monk krenair@gmail.com wrote:
You'd have to stop stewards from loading site-wide JS, gadgets, as well as removing their ability to have their user JS from pulling in JS from other sites/users/etc. somehow.
Trying to restrict it would probably lead to a backlash from communities that would make superprotect look like a joke. I suspect that if such a feature were proposed today, it would never be given to local users, but reserved for globally trusted people like developers. Local sysops are not necessarily (or maybe even usually) technically skilled, and communities do not appear to realise the amount of power that editinterface actually gives you, and that code written with it may frequently be executed by people with rights that the community would consider superior, like steward/oversight/checkuser/bureaucrat.
I would not tell them not to worry about it.
On Fri, 16 Mar 2018, 17:33 Leon Ziemba, musikanimal@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sorry to slightly sidetrack this discussion, but someone recently asked me if it were possible to modify a steward's user JS so that it granted them advanced rights like steward/checkuser/oversight. This of course is possible, but very rare since you need to be a sysop to edit these JS pages. The point this person was making to me however was that on smaller wikis it can be easy to become a sysop, and it's probable that by nature stewards will show up there occasionally, and that their own personal JS may not be closely watched. I told them not to worry about it, but if we really wanted to do something, we could make a steward's JS only be mutable by other stewards (or something).
Maybe something else to think about?
~Leon
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 5:46 PM, Eran Rosenthal eranroz89@gmail.com wrote:
Lego already did a script to verify no external resources are loaded: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T71519 I think there is a Jenkins job running it on regular basis
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 6:30 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
What ways are there to include user-edited JavaScript in a wiki page?
[...]
You can't see it now, but it was someone including a JavaScript cryptocurrency miner in common.js!
Obviously this is not going to be a common thing, and common.js is closely watched. (The above edit was reverted in 7 minutes, and the user banned.)
But what are the ways to get user-edited JavaScript running on a MediaWiki, outside one's own personal usage? And what permissions are needed? I ask with threats like this in mind.
There's an old post of mine that documents some of the ways to inject site-wide JavaScript: <https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-
August/073787.html
I believe, as Brian notes in this thread, that most methods require
having
the "editinterface" user right so that you can edit wiki pages in the "MediaWiki" namespace. By default, this user right is assigned to the "sysop" user group, but if you search through https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/InitialiseSettings.php.txt for the
string
"editinterface", you can see that on specific wikis such as fawiki,
this
user right has been assigned to additional user groups.
Jon Robson wrote:
It has always made me a little uneasy that there are wiki pages where JavaScript could potentially be injected into my page without my
approval.
To be honest if I had the option I would disable all site and user
scripts
for my account.
You could file a Phabricator task about this. We already specifically exempt certain pages, such as Special:UserLogin and
Special:Preferences,
from injecting custom JavaScript. We could potentially add a user preference to do what you're suggesting.
That said, you're currently executing thousands upon thousands of lines
of
code on your computer that you've never read or verified. If you're a standard computer user, you visit hundreds of Web sites per year that
each
execute thousands of lines of untrusted scripts that you've never read
or
verified. Of all the places you're likely to run into trouble,
Wikimedia
wikis are, in many ways, some of the safest. Given all of this code,
your
computer, as well as mine, are vulnerable to dozens of very real
attacks
at any time. And yet we soldier on without too much panic or worry.
Has this sort of thing happened before?
Salon.com recently prompted users with ad blocking software installed
to
voluntarily mine cryptocurrency: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1259653. This situation on fa.wikipedia.org was obviously involuntary. I don't
know
of any similar incidents. We have had wiki administrators inadvertently inject scripts with privacy issues, such as Google Analytics. These scripts have generally been promptly removed when noticed. On the other hand, pages such as https://status.wikimedia.org/ have been loading
the
same problematic scripts (Google Analytics and JavaScript from ajax.googleapis.com) for years and nobody seems to have cared enough
yet.
Can we be sure there isn't a gadget, interface page that has this sort
of
code lurking inside? Do we have any detection measures in place?
A much surer bet is that at least some gadgets and other site-wide JavaScript have privacy issues and potentially security issues. It
would
be shocking if, across the hundreds of Wikimedia wikis, none of them
did.
I think in the past Timo and maybe Alex Monk have done some surveying
of
public Wikimedia wikis using a browser or browser emulator to check if there are network requests being made to non-Wikimedia domains. As
Lucas
noted in this thread already, there are also tasks such as https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T135963 that could be worked on,
if
there's sufficient interest.
MZMcBride
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
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