Re: [Emacs-diffs] master f373e81 1/2: New lispref section “Security Considerations”

Re: [Emacs-diffs] master f373e81 1/2: New lispref section “Security Considerations”

[Stefan Monnier]

>     * doc/lispref/os.texi (Security Considerations):
>     New node.

There's also the fact that various features like file-local variables
mean that opening /some/file/some/where can be dangerous if that file or
some parent directory is under the control of an attacker.

We do some effort to protect against such holes, but the risk is very
real: it only takes a single package setting safe-local-variable too
optimistically (such as elpa/packages/ada-mode recently, IIRC).


        Stefan

Re: [Emacs-diffs] master f373e81 1/2: New lispref section “Security Considerations”

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA>
> Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2015 00:15:13 -0400
> Cc: Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>
> 
> >     * doc/lispref/os.texi (Security Considerations):
> >     New node.
> 
> There's also the fact that various features like file-local variables
> mean that opening /some/file/some/where can be dangerous if that file or
> some parent directory is under the control of an attacker.
> 
> We do some effort to protect against such holes, but the risk is very
> real: it only takes a single package setting safe-local-variable too
> optimistically (such as elpa/packages/ada-mode recently, IIRC).

I think at least some of this stuff should be in the User Manual,
perhaps worded slightly differently.  Part of security is in the hands
of the users, Lisp programmers can do very little about that.