4 ms·

I think the xz disaster would be a reason why Wasm-based plugins would be bad. People would be forced to use plugins written in a language they may not know and

• yunohn 3y ago
  A WASM setup should completely sandbox the plugin so even with malicious code, it would not have access to anything sensitive.
  • habitue 3y ago
    Depends. if the editor is given permission to edit files, like say, many people do `sudo helix` when they want to edit some system config file, you could imagine a rogue wasm plugin doing a lot of harm. Sandboxing isn't magic, if you need the permissions to do something, then the things in the sandbox get access to them.
    • yunohn 3y ago
      That’s not how the WASM sandbox usually works - it has a very limited API surface and can only take specified inputs. https://docs.wasmtime.dev/security.html https://docs.wasmtime.dev/security.html
      • habitue 3y ago
        Right, but it can control the editor indirectly through that API surface, and the editor can write to the filesystem. It's definitely more secure than running a non-sandboxed executable, but the entire point of a plugin is to have an effect on the editing process, and the entire point of the editor is to modify files on the filesystem. As long as that's true there's a casual mechanism for an untrusted plugin to do damage.