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Apps and Sensitive APIs
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Jonas Sicking
Mar 9, 2015, 8:24:18 PM3/9/15
to dev...@lists.mozilla.org
(Sorry to change from dev-webapi to dev-b2g, but I think dev-b2g is
better given the size of these changes).
On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 4:49 AM, Benjamin Francis <bfra...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> One potential answer is that:
>
> - Privileged hosted web apps can be self-signed by developers (using a
> certificate issued by an issuer with a CA root Authority installed in
> Firefox OS) and users must decide whether to trust the developer. Mozilla
> could choose to become an issuer of free certificates (as we are with Let's
> Encrypt) but would not be the sole issuer.
> - Certified apps become a new type of chrome which happens to use HTML5
> as a markup language. If we want third parties to be able to build apps or
> extensions to this chrome then they become a new type of chrome extension
> which can only be signed by Mozilla. Firefox OS apps/extensions would by
> definition be Firefox OS-only.
Hi All,
This matches pretty closely with my thinking as of late.
I think there are a few things that we need to realize and accept.
First off, it's really hard to "move the web". Especially with a
marketshare as long as FirefoxOS has. If we're going to stand any
chance of actually changing web developer behavior at large, we need
at the very least Firefox for Android and Firefox desktop to push for
the same changes. But realistically also other browser vendors.
In this light, I would say that some of our efforts of trying to make
the web more "appy" has been a mistake. Though one that we've learned
a lot from I think. We should make sure that this experience is used
as we work on standards like web manifests and web activities.
Second, I think we need to accept the fact that some of the APIs that
are needed to build a complete OS simply aren't safe to expose to
untrusted content authors.
As long as the web maintains a model that content can be consumed
without users having to worry about security concerns, and be
published without any need to go through reviews, there has to be
limits on what type of content that can be created. And I think
there's broad agreement here that we don't want to give up that model.
I don't think statements like "being able to write an irc client is a
minimum" is really fair. We could likewise say "being able to run an
run any software without worrying that it's going to reconfigure your
router is a minimum", which is a statement that all other platforms
fail.
That said, I'm all ears for constructive ideas for how we can solve
shortcomings of the web platform. But I also think we should also keep
this in perspective. There's a lot of content on the web. All of it
has been built without access to these APIs. Even for content that is
explicitly built for FirefoxOS and submitted to the Firefox
marketplace, only about 5-10% need these APIs.
Third, there is essentially no interest from other browser vendors to
"standardize" or even get alignment on APIs that can't be exposed to
normal webpages.
Google is about as interested in aligning their chrome apps APIs with
our APIs, as they are to listen to us about what their Android APIs
should look like. Other vendors have shown about the same amount of
interest.
There just isn't much value in anyone changing their APIs. Authors
aren't really asking for it, and the platforms are different enough
that authors wouldn't see large benefits anyway.
One interesting question to ask here is, would we be interested in
adopting Tizen's API for, for example, SD card access? Or Chrome-app's
API for TCPSocket?
So what does this mean that we should do?
First off, I think we should get rid of "apps" as a platform feature.
This doesn't need to mean that we should change the UX of B2G. That is
a separate consideration.
But we should get rid of cookie jars. And accept the web for the big
goop of content that it is :)
We could add features to allow websites to indicate that it wants the
security protections that the current cookie jars support. But per the
above, that's not a feature that we should push through FirefoxOS
alone. If it's something that we think is important, we should push it
as a web feature together with Firefox desktop and other browser
vendors.
I think we should also keep exposing "sensitive APIs", both to gaia
and to 3rd party developers. Converting all the email servers in the
world to use CORS simply isn't realistic. But we should make
improvements in how these APIs are exposed.
I do think that we still want code that uses these "sensitive APIs" to
be signed. However that doesn't mean that we have to keep using the
same model, of app:-protocol and installable zip files that we
currently use.
There's a few things that I think would be great to accomplish for
content that uses these sensitive APIs:
* Enable the user to simply navigate to content which uses sensitive
APIs, without the need to install it first. I.e. enable the content to
be available through "real" linkable URLs.
* Enable developers to sign the content without going through a
marketplace review. I.e. enable developers to distribute and updated
version of their content without having to go through marketplace
review.
* Enable Marketplace to hand out the ability to use a particular API
to a developer, rather than to a particular version of a particular
app.
* Remove technical separation between "privileged" and "certified"
APIs. We can still decide not to grant any third party content the
ability to use, for example, the power API, by simply not granting the
right to use that API to any developers other than gaia developers.
But the client-side code doesn't need to make that decision.
* While I think signed content that can use sensitive APIs should have
real URLs, I think it needs to never be same-origin with unsigned
"normal" content.
* It would be good if we can keep the process separation advantages
that we currently have for content that can use "sensitive APIs". I.e.
it would be nice if it required more than finding a buffer overflow
bug in Gecko in order to gain access to use the telephony API. But
it'd be good if we can hide this fact as much as possible from web
developers.
* I think we should still keep the CSP requirements that we have for
content that uses "sensitive APIs". I.e. all JS that can use those
APIs has to be signed by the developer.
What signing format to use, and how to keep it not same-origin as
unsigned content, is probably best done as a separate thread.
Hopefully we can get agreement on the rest of this thread without
solving that part.
I also think we need to stop worrying so much about that these APIs
aren't standardized. It simply isn't in our power to make these really
standardized. It requires that other vendors are actually willing to
work together with us on aligning APIs, and I just haven't seen that.
And more importantly, very little content is using these APIs. The web
is far greater. Even developers that target FirefoxOS specifically are
90-95% of the time able to write their content without using these
APIs.
That said, if anyone wants to make an effort and reach out to other
vendors to get agreement on any API, feel free to give it a try.
The only thing that I could see being successful in the short term
would be to simply adopt APIs from other platforms. Cordova and
Node.js would be prime candidates here I think. If anyone has
suggestions for APIs that you think would be good candidates, please
let me know.
As mentioned above, I think there's still some APIs that I'm very
nervous about exposing to 3rd party websites. For example, enabling
placing phone calls through direct calls to the API, rather than by
using <a href="tel:..."> or a WebActivity seems like inviting malware.
It's also not a terribly good way to enable users to replace the
built-in dialer. Since the user would still have the built-in dialer.
A better solution to enable replacing the dialer UI might be to use
some form of addon system. An addon which tweaked, or completely
replaced, the built-in dialer UI would be awesome.
Likewise an addon which sat between the dialer and the actual phone
hardware, and did things like block lists, or changed incoming and/or
outgoing phone numbers would be great. Or addons which encrypt the
voice audio when calling friends which has the same addon.
Addons have been great for Firefox desktop. I think it can be as
awesome for FirefoxOS, if not more so.
Addons will definitely be Firefox(OS) specific. But no more so than
the telephony API is, and is likely to remain for the foreseeable
future.
Again, I think how exactly how these addons will work is a better
topic for a separate thread.
In summary:
On a technical level we'd be much more like the web has traditionally
been. I.e. no cookie jars or app silos. The user can navigate between
any content by following normal links. This will include content that
use "sensitive APIs".
The only content distinction we'd end up with is "signed" vs.
"unsigned". And to the user both would look like normal web.
The "signed" content will be FirefoxOS specific until we find others
which are interested in collaborating on APIs, which isn't expected to
be soon. But to put this in perspective, the vast majority of authors
are able to author content without using these APIs.
On a technical level, Gaia would just be normal signed content. The
distinction between "certified" and "privileged" disappear. Though we
can still choose on a per-API and per-developer basis which API we
allow what developers to use. Though UX-wise we might still want to
give gaia special treatment.
Users can install addons which change the behavior of other content.
This will include both change behavior of gaia, as well as of signed
and unsigned websites.
Let me know what you think.
/ Jonas
better given the size of these changes).
On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 4:49 AM, Benjamin Francis <bfra...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> One potential answer is that:
>
> - Privileged hosted web apps can be self-signed by developers (using a
> certificate issued by an issuer with a CA root Authority installed in
> Firefox OS) and users must decide whether to trust the developer. Mozilla
> could choose to become an issuer of free certificates (as we are with Let's
> Encrypt) but would not be the sole issuer.
> - Certified apps become a new type of chrome which happens to use HTML5
> as a markup language. If we want third parties to be able to build apps or
> extensions to this chrome then they become a new type of chrome extension
> which can only be signed by Mozilla. Firefox OS apps/extensions would by
> definition be Firefox OS-only.
Hi All,
This matches pretty closely with my thinking as of late.
I think there are a few things that we need to realize and accept.
First off, it's really hard to "move the web". Especially with a
marketshare as long as FirefoxOS has. If we're going to stand any
chance of actually changing web developer behavior at large, we need
at the very least Firefox for Android and Firefox desktop to push for
the same changes. But realistically also other browser vendors.
In this light, I would say that some of our efforts of trying to make
the web more "appy" has been a mistake. Though one that we've learned
a lot from I think. We should make sure that this experience is used
as we work on standards like web manifests and web activities.
Second, I think we need to accept the fact that some of the APIs that
are needed to build a complete OS simply aren't safe to expose to
untrusted content authors.
As long as the web maintains a model that content can be consumed
without users having to worry about security concerns, and be
published without any need to go through reviews, there has to be
limits on what type of content that can be created. And I think
there's broad agreement here that we don't want to give up that model.
I don't think statements like "being able to write an irc client is a
minimum" is really fair. We could likewise say "being able to run an
run any software without worrying that it's going to reconfigure your
router is a minimum", which is a statement that all other platforms
fail.
That said, I'm all ears for constructive ideas for how we can solve
shortcomings of the web platform. But I also think we should also keep
this in perspective. There's a lot of content on the web. All of it
has been built without access to these APIs. Even for content that is
explicitly built for FirefoxOS and submitted to the Firefox
marketplace, only about 5-10% need these APIs.
Third, there is essentially no interest from other browser vendors to
"standardize" or even get alignment on APIs that can't be exposed to
normal webpages.
Google is about as interested in aligning their chrome apps APIs with
our APIs, as they are to listen to us about what their Android APIs
should look like. Other vendors have shown about the same amount of
interest.
There just isn't much value in anyone changing their APIs. Authors
aren't really asking for it, and the platforms are different enough
that authors wouldn't see large benefits anyway.
One interesting question to ask here is, would we be interested in
adopting Tizen's API for, for example, SD card access? Or Chrome-app's
API for TCPSocket?
So what does this mean that we should do?
First off, I think we should get rid of "apps" as a platform feature.
This doesn't need to mean that we should change the UX of B2G. That is
a separate consideration.
But we should get rid of cookie jars. And accept the web for the big
goop of content that it is :)
We could add features to allow websites to indicate that it wants the
security protections that the current cookie jars support. But per the
above, that's not a feature that we should push through FirefoxOS
alone. If it's something that we think is important, we should push it
as a web feature together with Firefox desktop and other browser
vendors.
I think we should also keep exposing "sensitive APIs", both to gaia
and to 3rd party developers. Converting all the email servers in the
world to use CORS simply isn't realistic. But we should make
improvements in how these APIs are exposed.
I do think that we still want code that uses these "sensitive APIs" to
be signed. However that doesn't mean that we have to keep using the
same model, of app:-protocol and installable zip files that we
currently use.
There's a few things that I think would be great to accomplish for
content that uses these sensitive APIs:
* Enable the user to simply navigate to content which uses sensitive
APIs, without the need to install it first. I.e. enable the content to
be available through "real" linkable URLs.
* Enable developers to sign the content without going through a
marketplace review. I.e. enable developers to distribute and updated
version of their content without having to go through marketplace
review.
* Enable Marketplace to hand out the ability to use a particular API
to a developer, rather than to a particular version of a particular
app.
* Remove technical separation between "privileged" and "certified"
APIs. We can still decide not to grant any third party content the
ability to use, for example, the power API, by simply not granting the
right to use that API to any developers other than gaia developers.
But the client-side code doesn't need to make that decision.
* While I think signed content that can use sensitive APIs should have
real URLs, I think it needs to never be same-origin with unsigned
"normal" content.
* It would be good if we can keep the process separation advantages
that we currently have for content that can use "sensitive APIs". I.e.
it would be nice if it required more than finding a buffer overflow
bug in Gecko in order to gain access to use the telephony API. But
it'd be good if we can hide this fact as much as possible from web
developers.
* I think we should still keep the CSP requirements that we have for
content that uses "sensitive APIs". I.e. all JS that can use those
APIs has to be signed by the developer.
What signing format to use, and how to keep it not same-origin as
unsigned content, is probably best done as a separate thread.
Hopefully we can get agreement on the rest of this thread without
solving that part.
I also think we need to stop worrying so much about that these APIs
aren't standardized. It simply isn't in our power to make these really
standardized. It requires that other vendors are actually willing to
work together with us on aligning APIs, and I just haven't seen that.
And more importantly, very little content is using these APIs. The web
is far greater. Even developers that target FirefoxOS specifically are
90-95% of the time able to write their content without using these
APIs.
That said, if anyone wants to make an effort and reach out to other
vendors to get agreement on any API, feel free to give it a try.
The only thing that I could see being successful in the short term
would be to simply adopt APIs from other platforms. Cordova and
Node.js would be prime candidates here I think. If anyone has
suggestions for APIs that you think would be good candidates, please
let me know.
As mentioned above, I think there's still some APIs that I'm very
nervous about exposing to 3rd party websites. For example, enabling
placing phone calls through direct calls to the API, rather than by
using <a href="tel:..."> or a WebActivity seems like inviting malware.
It's also not a terribly good way to enable users to replace the
built-in dialer. Since the user would still have the built-in dialer.
A better solution to enable replacing the dialer UI might be to use
some form of addon system. An addon which tweaked, or completely
replaced, the built-in dialer UI would be awesome.
Likewise an addon which sat between the dialer and the actual phone
hardware, and did things like block lists, or changed incoming and/or
outgoing phone numbers would be great. Or addons which encrypt the
voice audio when calling friends which has the same addon.
Addons have been great for Firefox desktop. I think it can be as
awesome for FirefoxOS, if not more so.
Addons will definitely be Firefox(OS) specific. But no more so than
the telephony API is, and is likely to remain for the foreseeable
future.
Again, I think how exactly how these addons will work is a better
topic for a separate thread.
In summary:
On a technical level we'd be much more like the web has traditionally
been. I.e. no cookie jars or app silos. The user can navigate between
any content by following normal links. This will include content that
use "sensitive APIs".
The only content distinction we'd end up with is "signed" vs.
"unsigned". And to the user both would look like normal web.
The "signed" content will be FirefoxOS specific until we find others
which are interested in collaborating on APIs, which isn't expected to
be soon. But to put this in perspective, the vast majority of authors
are able to author content without using these APIs.
On a technical level, Gaia would just be normal signed content. The
distinction between "certified" and "privileged" disappear. Though we
can still choose on a per-API and per-developer basis which API we
allow what developers to use. Though UX-wise we might still want to
give gaia special treatment.
Users can install addons which change the behavior of other content.
This will include both change behavior of gaia, as well as of signed
and unsigned websites.
Let me know what you think.
/ Jonas
Anders Rundgren
Mar 13, 2015, 2:56:28 AM3/13/15
to mozilla...@lists.mozilla.org
Hi Jonas,
The subject you brought up is IMO the #1 question not only for Mozilla but for the Web at large.
I think my recently updated document
http://webpki.org/papers/web2native-bridge.pdf
pretty well describes ONE way ahead which essentially is a "Semi-Open" Web.
Although the document is targeting "Security Applications", the principle should be applicable to other kinds of application as well.
Unfortunately I get the feeling that the Web is stuck, leaving the market with Android and iOS apps as the only viable solutions. That's surely NOT my goal!
I don't see signed websites as the future; websites referring to locally installed web-apps in IFRAMEs have a sounder deployment- and trust-model and also requires much less standardization to work.
Cheers,
Anders
The subject you brought up is IMO the #1 question not only for Mozilla but for the Web at large.
I think my recently updated document
http://webpki.org/papers/web2native-bridge.pdf
pretty well describes ONE way ahead which essentially is a "Semi-Open" Web.
Although the document is targeting "Security Applications", the principle should be applicable to other kinds of application as well.
Unfortunately I get the feeling that the Web is stuck, leaving the market with Android and iOS apps as the only viable solutions. That's surely NOT my goal!
I don't see signed websites as the future; websites referring to locally installed web-apps in IFRAMEs have a sounder deployment- and trust-model and also requires much less standardization to work.
Cheers,
Anders
Anders Rundgren
Mar 14, 2015, 2:08:43 AM3/14/15
to mozilla...@lists.mozilla.org
On Tuesday, March 10, 2015 at 1:24:18 AM UTC+1, Jonas Sicking wrote:
Signed code is GREAT. However, it doesn't have any meaning for END-USERS as a way to determine if code is to be trusted or not.
The AppStore/Vetted approach has therefore become the norm but it is device/vendor/OS- dependent. I think it will stay like that which is yet another reason why signed web-sites won't fly.
Another hurdle is that there's no evidence that Apple, Google and Microsoft actually intend to duplicate their sensitive APIs for usage on the web, and particularly not as standards. This posting by Google is worth looking into:
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-web-security/2015Feb/0034.html
That's why I'm advocating a web which allows you to securely connect to the already established native (in FFOS proprietary HTML5/JS) world.
Anders
Anders Rundgren
Mar 17, 2015, 2:06:21 AM3/17/15
to mozilla...@lists.mozilla.org
If you take a peek in
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=378566
you will note that popular services like Spotify and Dropbox depend on bypassing the browser through a non-standard and troubled extension-scheme.
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=378566
you will note that popular services like Spotify and Dropbox depend on bypassing the browser through a non-standard and troubled extension-scheme.
Anders Rundgren
Mar 17, 2015, 10:53:31 AM3/17/15
to mozilla...@lists.mozilla.org
github-windows://openRepo/https://github.com/cyberphone/webpkisuite-4-android
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