this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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I am a long-time NoScript extension (https://noscript.net/) user. For those who don't know this automatically blocks any javascript and let you accept them (temporarily or permanently) based on the scripts' origin domain.

NoScript as some quality-of-life option like 'accepting script from current page's domain by default' so only 3rd parties would be blocked (usefull in mobile where it is tedious to go to the menu).

When I saw LibreJS (https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/) I though that would be a better version of NoScript but it is quiet different in usage and cares about license and not open-source code (maybe it can't).

Am I the only one who thought about checking for open-source JS scripts filtering (at least by default)? This would require reproducibility of 'compilation'/packaging. I think with lock files (npm, yarn, etc) this could be doable and we could have some automatic checks for code.

Maybe the trust system for who checks could be a problem. I wanted to discuss this matter for a while.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (8 children)

Publishing lock files of running services would be a big security risk for the service owner as it gives an easily parsable way for an attacker to check if your bundle includes any package versions with vulnerabilities.

You then also have tools like snyk used by many big organisations which has the ability to patch dependencies before the actual dependency published the patch themselves. This would lead to a version not corresponding with the bundled code.

In fact given bundling is pretty ubiquitous, but infinitely configurable at this point, even validating the integrity of the bundle Vs the versions in a lock file is a problem that will be hard to achieve. It's kinda like wanting to untoast bread.

Also given many JS projects have a lock file which describes both the deficiencies of the front end bundle, server & build tooling, there is a risk of leaking information about that too (it's best practice to make as little as possible about your server configuration publicly viewable)

IMO, the solution to this problem today is to use a modern, updated browser that sandboxes execution, run a adblocker with appropriate trusted blocklists for what you're avoiding, try to only use sites you trust & if you can, push web developers to use CSP & SRI to prevent malicious actors from injecting code into their sites without them knowing. Many sites already take advantage of these features, so if you trust the owner, you should be able to trust the code running on the page. If you don't trust the owner with client side JS, you probably shouldn't trust them with whatever they're running on the server side too.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

When one asks if something is free software (a.k.a. FOSS) the concern isn't so much trust but rather can one view, modify, and share the program. Sandboxes solve a different problem.

In the case of a javascript bundle, in order for a user to exercise the Four Freedoms they must at minimum be provided with corresponding source code for each component in the bundle, and preferably some way in the browser for the user to inspect and modify it. In other words, it must be treated like any other compiled binary program. A lock file with specific versions probably isn't necessary (and server configuration and source code definitely isn't).

You are right in that this would require cooperation from the service provider to provide this metadata, and most definitely would not do this. Therefore, such an extension as OP suggests would have the effect of blocking the vast majority of javascript on the web today. LibreJS tries to some extent but I don't know how well it can handle bundled javascript files.

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