From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Trojan Source detection/highlight in Emacs? Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2021 11:12:39 -0400 Message-ID: References: <834k8ulkqe.fsf@gnu.org> Reply-To: Stefan Monnier Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="37073"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/28.0.50 (gnu/linux) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Cancel-Lock: sha1:EFrUJl9OsYU2V5Vhcp80VsVKo1M= Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Tue Nov 02 16:14:04 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1mhvUC-0009U6-4p for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Tue, 02 Nov 2021 16:14:04 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:35162 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mhvUA-0003WT-W1 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Tue, 02 Nov 2021 11:14:03 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:35274) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mhvT4-000376-Mp for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 02 Nov 2021 11:12:56 -0400 Original-Received: from ciao.gmane.io ([116.202.254.214]:60856) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mhvT0-0004QY-Tr for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 02 Nov 2021 11:12:53 -0400 Original-Received: from list by ciao.gmane.io with local (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1mhvSz-00080A-5G for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 02 Nov 2021 16:12:49 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Received-SPF: pass client-ip=116.202.254.214; envelope-from=geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; helo=ciao.gmane.io X-Spam_score_int: -16 X-Spam_score: -1.7 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.7 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS=0.249, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "help-gnu-emacs" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.help:134314 Archived-At: > Now, the code there is not ready for the kind of tricks these new > examples are playing, so it doesn't detect them. It can be enhanced > to do that, though. But I'm reluctant to invest my time and energy in > a feature that will just keep collecting dust. So I will only work on > this if someone is actually prepared to use this function in Emacs by > adding some user-facing UI features, like making the problematic text > stand out on display, or displaying a warning. I can see two use cases: - One that's disabled by default, and where we can expect the users to accept a fairly strict definition of "normal" (e.g. flag any non-ASCII char as suspicious). That should be pretty easy to implement, but very rarely used (only by security-conscious people who happen to work almost exclusively with code using English identifiers and comments). - One that's enabled by default, but in that case it'll have to be a lot more permissive so as not to get in the way of people who want to write comments and identifiers in their mother tongue. Making this permissive enough without leaving gaping security holes seems hard. > I should also mention that Emacs has (weak) defenses against this kind > of tricks: we show the formatting control characters on display, > unlike other editors that hide them. Also, cursor motion with C-f and > C-b will seem to behave erratically if you move across the problematic > text. So users that actually look at the code they use will most > probably find out that something strange is going on (if they don't > look, no visual cue will do). If the readers are only reviewing the code without actually editing it, there's a significant probability that they won't move across the problematic case with the cursor (they'll only do that with their eyes). Stefan