Easy Plugins Website - GSoC Project 2013

[Bhaskar Kandiyal]

On Thursday 30 May 2013 02:28 AM, Jurre van Bergen wrote:
> 
> 1) SSL
> it would be nice to have the update website only accessible over SSL
> with HSTS/CSP/X-Frame headers and pin the certificate in Pidgin. This
> would make it _very_  hard for attackers to insert malicious plugins
> while the user is downloading the plugin.

Yes, site-wide SSL would be a great option. Just like Mozilla addons.

> 2) Gitian
> Bitcoin gets compiled with a program called Gitian[1]:
> 
> I quote:
> "Gitian is a secure source-control oriented software distribution
> method. This means you can download trusted binaries that are verified
> by multiple builders.
> 
> Gitian uses a deterministic build process to allow multiple builders to
> create identical binaries. This allows multiple parties to sign the
> resulting binaries, guaranteeing that the binaries and tool chain were
> not tampered with and that the same source was used. It remove the build
> and distribution process as a single point of failure."
> 
> [1]http://gitian.org/
> 
> It would be nice if the source code could be uploaded by the plugin
> authors and then compiled on a Pidgin build-farm which consists of
> several small vps systems and which then gets signed and the results
> uploaded to the plugin website, if all matches, it would be safe to
> assume the binary is safe.

Interesting suggestion. I think having something like build farms for us
would be an overkill and this would also require a significant amount of
resources. But thanks for the suggestion, I need to read up a bit on
Gitian and how it works, it sounds quite interesting :)

> 3) Update framework
> 
> Has Pidgin considered using an update framework? How is the user going
> to be securely notified about a version bump or security issues? Tor has
> been working on TUF[2] which might be worth looking into.
> 
> [2] https://www.updateframework.com/

Awesome! I think this is exactly what we need. I will go through the
docs to learn how it's all set up and how easy / difficult it would be
to incorporate it in the project (it doesn't seem too much work from
what little reading I've done on this). So, either TUF or we can use
Mozilla's Zamboni modules for it. Many thanks for the suggestion, really
helpful :)

> All the best,
> 
> Jurre
> 

Thank you very much! I appreciate your input :)

Cheers,
Bhaskar Kandiyal