I'm not convinced this is such a cure-all as any library must necessarily have the ability to "taint" its output. Like consider this library. It's a compression library. You would presumably trust it to decompress things right? Like programs? And then you run those programs with full permission? Oops..
It’s not a cure-all. I mean, we’re talking about infosec - so nothing is. But that said, barely any programs need the ability to execute arbitrary binaries. I can’t remember the last time I used eval() in JavaScript.
I agree that it wouldn’t stop this library from injecting backdoors into decompressed executables. But I still think it would be a big help anyway. It would stop this attack from working.
At the big picture, we need to acknowledge that we can’t implicitly trust opensource libraries on the internet. They are written by strangers, and if you wouldn’t invite them into your home you shouldn’t give them permission to execute arbitrary code with user level permissions on your computer.
I don’t think there are any one size fits all answers here. And I can’t see a way to make your “tainted output” idea work. But even so, cutting down the trusted surface area from “leftpad can cryptolocker your computer” to “Leftpad could return bad output” sounds like it would move us in the right direction.
Of course we need to trust people to some degree. There's an old Jewish saying - put your trust in god, but your money in the bank. I think its like that. I'm all for trusting people - but I still like how my web browser sandboxes every website I visit. That is a good idea.
We (obviously) put too much trust in little libraries like xz. I don't see a world in which people start using fewer dependencies in their projects. So given that, I think anything which makes 3rd party dependencies safer than they are now is a good thing. Hence the proposal.
The downside is it adds more complexity. Is that complexity worth it? Hard to say. Thats still worth talking about.
i guess the big opensource community should put a little bit more trust in statistics or integrate statistic evaluation in their decission making to use specific products in their supply chains.
