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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1w
Second update: Yes, this is pointless security theatre. Any addon can download and execute remote code. So even if you do all of the work I mentioned, unless you audit the code, you still have no idea if the addon is safe or secure. This just gives users a dangerously false sense of security. The only way it would be meaningful is if NVDA code signs all addons, disables remotely downloading files, and only allows approved addons through the store. And doing this would be far, far worse than the alternative. It would mean, for one, that Eloquence would be completely dead as an NVDA addon. NVDA doesn't allow it in the addon store, and thus wouldn't sign it.

Update: it looks like the outreach to virustotal.com in my firewall logs was unrelated to NVDA. Based on a look at: github.com/nvaccess/nvda/blob/master/source/addonStore/models/scanResults.py

NVDA just accepts whatever the addon manifest says without verification. So instead of a privacy violation, this is just pointless. I can put whatever I want there in my addons, and it'll reassure the user that no viruses were found. To actually know the truth, a user has to:
* visit the URL
* hash there addon
* compare the hashes

And only then can they know if the results in the virustotal URL they visited are the same ones for the addon they installed, and that the information in the manifest is correct based on the actual virustotal.com findings.

By the time you do all that, either Windows Defender has flagged the virus, or you're already screwed.

I guess I'd rather pointless security theatre than privacy violation, if I have to choose. But can't I have neither?

It looks like in the latest alphas, it's now sending all of your addons to be scanned by VirusTotal. I did not give permission for this, and I do not want this. How long until NVDA stops addons it doesn't approve from running at all? For now I have virustotal.com blocked at the router. There seems to be no other way to block this.
'scanResults': {'scanUrl': 'www.virustotal.com/gui/file/2a83b713e38596cfbcb3f98b5eb91530ddfd0e9319907c6119cbbbe08f7acc88', 'malicious': 0, 'undetected': 67, 'harmless': 0, 'suspicious': 0, 'failure': 0, 'timeout': 0, 'confirmedTimeout': 0, 'typeUnsupported': 9}}
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "addonStore\models\scanResults.pyc", line 31, in fromDict
KeyError: 'virusTotal'
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User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6d
An actual security solution:
* allow user reviews of addons
* allow users to report addons
* remove addons from the store after X number of reports
* have a reputation system for addon developers (How many addons? How many versions? How long have they been around?)
* allow high reputation developers to do code reviews of other addons and submit the results

This would help for addons in the store. For addons not in the store, users are on their own. However, even for non-store addons, NVDA could do things that would reduce risk:
* Check PGP keys. An addon that claims it was by fastfinge but isn't signed by my PGP key won't run. Public keyservers already exist; NVDA doesn't need to build infrastructure, or in any way gatekeep or endorse developers to do this.
* reserve addon names: fastfinge is the known developer of unspoken-ng. So flag a big warning before running a version of unspoken-ng developed by BobTheBad man. And don't run a version of unspoken-ng not signed by fastfinge's known PGP key at all.

There are ways to let users understand if an addon can be trusted, or how much, and who made it, without centralizing on the store, pointlessly scanning with VirusTotal, etc. NVDA addon security based on restricting functionality is never going to work. So instead, we need to create the tools to build trust models of developers, and know exactly who wrote and signed off on the code we're running.
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Drew Mochak @prism@infosec.exchange
6d
@fastfinge Wouldn't that encourage brigading? Not to mention an NVDA person would need to review all the reports. Particularly in the AI age, I can easily see someone spamming a bunch of realistic looking reports from accounts. That's not to say they couldn't be discovered, but its extra effort for a job no one wants.
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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
6d
@prism This is why you track reputation. Number of false reports, account age, etc.
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