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dantheclamman@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish · 10 months ago

Google.com pages found to have access to hidden Chrome API allowing hardware info such as CPU usage to be viewed

simonwillison.net

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Google.com pages found to have access to hidden Chrome API allowing hardware info such as CPU usage to be viewed

simonwillison.net

dantheclamman@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish · 10 months ago
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hangout_services/thunk.js
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It turns out Google Chrome (via Chromium) includes a default extension which makes extra services available to code running on the `*.google.com` domains - tweeted about today [by Luca Casonato](https://twitter.com/lcasdev/status/1810696257137959018), …

h/t @[email protected] https://fedi.simonwillison.net/@simon/112757810519145581

  • xavier666@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    Remember this thumb rule -> if it’s not open-source, you are allowing the software to do whatever it wants to do.

    No regulation, law, support group is going to help you. You are digging your own grave.

    • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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      10 months ago

      I agree, but… This was in open source software. Chromium. Not just Google Chrome. https://github.com/chromium/chromium/commit/422c736b82e7ee763c67109cde700db81ca7b443

      hangout_services/thunk.js (via) It turns out Google Chrome (via Chromium) includes a default extension which makes extra services available to code running on the *.google.com domains - tweeted about today by Luca Casonato, but the code has been there in the public repo since October 2013 as far as I can tell.

      https://simonwillison.net/2024/Jul/9/hangout_servicesthunkjs/

    • redditReallySucks@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 months ago

      This is included in the chromium source code which is public

      https://github.com/chromium/chromium/blob/128.0.6586.1/chrome/browser/resources/hangout_services/thunk.js

    • vext01@lemmy.sdf.org
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      10 months ago

      If it’s any software you didn’t write yourself or audit every line of…

      For a typical Linux distro that’s tens of thousands of packages…

      • xavier666@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        I am no expert on code-auditing. But I’m slightly at peace that there are 100s of experts looking at the code because it’s open-source. But i also understand mistakes can still happen. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s the best solution so far.

        • vext01@lemmy.sdf.org
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          10 months ago

          There’s some truth to that, but bad actors have managed to slip things through in the past. It happened recently with xz.

          I guess my point is that we put a lot of trust in strangers when we run any code on our systems. Open or not.

          • xavier666@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            True. We can also not run code at all and be perfectly safe.

            I wish there was a comparison. Number of 0days in open source and 0days in closed source for comparible projects and a measure for time to mitigate the 0days.

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