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As the commit message was "Fix HTTPS protocol support in torrent/rss downloader" I suppose it was a quick fix to make things work, and as things worked no one e

As the commit message was "Fix HTTPS protocol support in torrent/rss downloader" I suppose it was a quick fix to make things work, and as things worked no one ever took a look at it until now. EDIT: The author of the PR[0] (who is one of the top qBittorrent contributors according to GitHub[1]) that fixed this also came to this conclusion: > I presume that it was a quick'n'dirty way to get SSL going which persisted to this day. It's also possible that back in the day Qt4 (?) didn't support autoloading ca root certificates from the OS's store. [0]: https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/pull/21364 https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/pull/21364 [1]: https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/graphs/contributors https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/graphs/contributo...

0xsee4 2y ago
To be fair, this function ignoreSslErrors is not from the authors of qBittorrent, it comes from QT framework. The idea behind the function is that you provide it a small whitelist of errors you wish to ignore, for example in a Dev build you may well want to ignore self-signed errors for your Dev environment. The trouble is, you can call it with no arguments and this means you will ignore every error. This may have been misunderstood by the qBittorrent maintainers, maybe not. Much more likely is that someone knew they had implemented this temporary solution while they implemented OpenSSL in a project which previously never had SSL support - a major change with a lot of work involved - and every programmer knows that there is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution. Especially in this case. I can understand how such code would make it into the repo(I think you do too), and it's very easy for us to say we would then have immediately amended it in the next version to properly verify certs. Having been in contact with the maintainers, I have to say I was disappointed in how seriously they took the issue. I don't want to say any more than that. Source: author of the article
- bdelay 2y ago
  How much notification did you give the developers before you disclosed? Did you enforce a timeline?
  - metadat 2y ago
    Warning shots across the bow in private are the polite and responsible way, but malicious actors don't typically extend such courtesies to their victims. As such, compared to the alternative (bad actors having even more time to leverage and amplify the information asymmetry), a timely public disclosure is preferable, even with some unfortunate and unavoidable fallout. Typically security researchers are reasonable and want to do the right thing with regard to responsible disclosure. On average, the "bigger party" inherently has more resources to respond compared to the reporter. This remains true even in open source software.
    - tsimionescu 2y ago
      This is a pretty dangerous take. The reality is that the vast majority of security vulnerabilities in software are not actively exploited, beause no one knows about them. Unless you have proof of active exploitation, you are much more likely to hurt users by publicly disclosing a 0-day than by responsibly disclosing it to the developer and giving them a reasonable amount of time to come out with a patch. Even if the developers are acting badly. Making a vulnerability public is putting a target on every user, not on the developer.
      - wisemang 2y ago
        Your take is the dangerous one. I don’t disagree that > the vast majority of security vulnerabilities in software are not actively exploited However I’d say your explanation that it’s > because no one knows about them is not necessarily the reason why. If the vendor or developer isn’t fixing things, going public is the correct option. (I agree some lead time / attempt at coordinated disclosure is preferable here.)
        tsimionescu 2y ago
        > (I agree some lead time / attempt at coordinated disclosure is preferable here.) Then I think we are in agreement overall. I took your initial comment to mean that as soon as you discover a vulnerability, you should make it public. If we agree that the process should always be to disclose it to the project, wait some amount of time, and only then make it public - then I think we are actually on the exact same page. Now, for the specific amount of time: ideally, you'd wait until the project has a patch available, if they are collaborating and prioritizing things appropriately. However, if they are dragging their feet and/or not even acknowledging that a fix is needed, then I also agree that you should set a fixed time as a last ditch attempt to get them to fix it (say, "2 weeks from today"), and then make it public as a 0-day.
- kgeist 2y ago
  Temporary solutions can become more dangerous with time. Years ago, in one of our projects, someone wrote a small helper class, HTTPClient, to talk to one of our internal subsystems. The subsystem in the dev environment used self-signed certificates, so one of the devs just disabled SSL validation. Whether SSL errors were ignored or not was specified in a config. Later, someone messed up while editing the configs, and SSL validation got disabled in the live environment, too. No one noticed, because nobody writes tests to check if SSL validation is enabled. But that's only part of the story, this HTTPClient class was still only used to communicate with our internal subsystem on our own network. The real problem came later when the next generation of developers saw this HTTPClient class and thought, "Hey, what a nifty little helper!", and soon they were using it to talk to pretty much everything, including financial systems. I was shocked when I discovered it. An inconsequential temporary workaround had turned into a huge security hole.
- xelamonster 2y ago
  This is interesting, I haven't ever used the Qt framework but I'm surprised that it would even have an SSL implementation, sounds a bit out of scope for a GUI toolkit. I think I'd prefer to do all my networking separately and provide the fetched data to Qt. Edit (just noticed this was the author): I'm curious what torrent client do you prefer? I like Deluge but mostly go to it because it's familiar.
  - ripdog 2y ago
    Qt isn't just a GUI toolkit - it's an everything toolkit. It's somewhat intended to be used (potentially) alone with C++ to allow the creation of a wide variety of apps. It includes modules like Bluetooth, Network, Multimedia, OAuth, Threading and XML. See a full list: https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/index.html https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/index.html
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      In the spirit of the C++ compiler frameworks that were quite common during the 1990's before C++98, and then we got quite a thin standard library instead, and a mess of how to manage third parties that is still being sorted out.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
  - immibis 2y ago
    [dead]
- tagyro 2y ago
  (most?) programming languages have a way to handle these scenarios, something like `#warning | TODO | FIXME` ... I understand temporary, but 14 years seems a bit ...too long
SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
Another point against the “security” of open source software. “Oh, it’ll have millions of eyes on it”… except no one looks.
- Nadya 2y ago
  As opposed to the “security” of closed source software? Where severe vulns are left in as long as they aren't publicized because it would take too much development time to justify fixing and the company doesn't make money fixing vulns - it makes money creating new features. And since it isn't a security-related product any lapses in security are an "Oopsy woopsy we screwed up" and everyone moves on with their lives? Even companies that are supposed to get security right have constant screw ups that are only fixed when someone goes poking around where they probably shouldn't and thankfully happens to not be malicious.
  - LittleShaman 2y ago
    I think your comment works as a reply to claiming closed source is more secure than open source - you try to bring them both to the same level. I dont think it replies to what the user asks though. It seems reasonable expecting widely used open source software to be studied by many people. If thats true it would be good to question why this wasnt caught by anyone. Ignoring all ssl errors is not something you need to be an expert to know is bad...
    - Nadya 2y ago
      Codebases outside of security-contexts are rarely audited, much less professionally so. The culture of code reviewing PR's from 14 years ago is a little different from today and is also why any "quick hacks to make things work" should always have some form of "//HACK: REVIEW OR REMOVE BY <DATE>" attached to it to make it easy to find. From a security perspective there are only two kinds of code bases: open & closed. By deduction one of those will have more eyeballs on the codebase than the other even if "nobody looks". Case in point: It may have taken 14 years but someone looked. Had the code base been closed source that may never have happened because it might not have been possible to ever happen. It's also very easy to point to the number of security issues that never made it into production because it was caught in an open source code review by passerbys and other contributors while the PR was waiting to be merged. The fact it was caught at all is a point for open source security - not against it. Even if it took 14 years.

0xsee4 2y ago

To be fair, this function ignoreSslErrors is not from the authors of qBittorrent, it comes from QT framework. The idea behind the function is that you provide it a small whitelist of errors you wish to ignore, for example in a Dev build you may well want to ignore self-signed errors for your Dev environment. The trouble is, you can call it with no arguments and this means you will ignore every error. This may have been misunderstood by the qBittorrent maintainers, maybe not. Much more likely is that someone knew they had implemented this temporary solution while they implemented OpenSSL in a project which previously never had SSL support - a major change with a lot of work involved - and every programmer knows that there is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution. Especially in this case. I can understand how such code would make it into the repo(I think you do too), and it's very easy for us to say we would then have immediately amended it in the next version to properly verify certs. Having been in contact with the maintainers, I have to say I was disappointed in how seriously they took the issue. I don't want to say any more than that. Source: author of the article

bdelay 2y ago
How much notification did you give the developers before you disclosed? Did you enforce a timeline?
- metadat 2y ago
  Warning shots across the bow in private are the polite and responsible way, but malicious actors don't typically extend such courtesies to their victims. As such, compared to the alternative (bad actors having even more time to leverage and amplify the information asymmetry), a timely public disclosure is preferable, even with some unfortunate and unavoidable fallout. Typically security researchers are reasonable and want to do the right thing with regard to responsible disclosure. On average, the "bigger party" inherently has more resources to respond compared to the reporter. This remains true even in open source software.
  - tsimionescu 2y ago
    This is a pretty dangerous take. The reality is that the vast majority of security vulnerabilities in software are not actively exploited, beause no one knows about them. Unless you have proof of active exploitation, you are much more likely to hurt users by publicly disclosing a 0-day than by responsibly disclosing it to the developer and giving them a reasonable amount of time to come out with a patch. Even if the developers are acting badly. Making a vulnerability public is putting a target on every user, not on the developer.
    - wisemang 2y ago
      Your take is the dangerous one. I don’t disagree that > the vast majority of security vulnerabilities in software are not actively exploited However I’d say your explanation that it’s > because no one knows about them is not necessarily the reason why. If the vendor or developer isn’t fixing things, going public is the correct option. (I agree some lead time / attempt at coordinated disclosure is preferable here.)
      - tsimionescu 2y ago
        > (I agree some lead time / attempt at coordinated disclosure is preferable here.) Then I think we are in agreement overall. I took your initial comment to mean that as soon as you discover a vulnerability, you should make it public. If we agree that the process should always be to disclose it to the project, wait some amount of time, and only then make it public - then I think we are actually on the exact same page. Now, for the specific amount of time: ideally, you'd wait until the project has a patch available, if they are collaborating and prioritizing things appropriately. However, if they are dragging their feet and/or not even acknowledging that a fix is needed, then I also agree that you should set a fixed time as a last ditch attempt to get them to fix it (say, "2 weeks from today"), and then make it public as a 0-day.
kgeist 2y ago
Temporary solutions can become more dangerous with time. Years ago, in one of our projects, someone wrote a small helper class, HTTPClient, to talk to one of our internal subsystems. The subsystem in the dev environment used self-signed certificates, so one of the devs just disabled SSL validation. Whether SSL errors were ignored or not was specified in a config. Later, someone messed up while editing the configs, and SSL validation got disabled in the live environment, too. No one noticed, because nobody writes tests to check if SSL validation is enabled. But that's only part of the story, this HTTPClient class was still only used to communicate with our internal subsystem on our own network. The real problem came later when the next generation of developers saw this HTTPClient class and thought, "Hey, what a nifty little helper!", and soon they were using it to talk to pretty much everything, including financial systems. I was shocked when I discovered it. An inconsequential temporary workaround had turned into a huge security hole.
xelamonster 2y ago
This is interesting, I haven't ever used the Qt framework but I'm surprised that it would even have an SSL implementation, sounds a bit out of scope for a GUI toolkit. I think I'd prefer to do all my networking separately and provide the fetched data to Qt. Edit (just noticed this was the author): I'm curious what torrent client do you prefer? I like Deluge but mostly go to it because it's familiar.
- ripdog 2y ago
  Qt isn't just a GUI toolkit - it's an everything toolkit. It's somewhat intended to be used (potentially) alone with C++ to allow the creation of a wide variety of apps. It includes modules like Bluetooth, Network, Multimedia, OAuth, Threading and XML. See a full list: https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/index.html https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/index.html
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    In the spirit of the C++ compiler frameworks that were quite common during the 1990's before C++98, and then we got quite a thin standard library instead, and a mess of how to manage third parties that is still being sorted out.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
- immibis 2y ago
  [dead]
tagyro 2y ago
(most?) programming languages have a way to handle these scenarios, something like `#warning | TODO | FIXME` ... I understand temporary, but 14 years seems a bit ...too long

SV_BubbleTime 2y ago

Another point against the “security” of open source software. “Oh, it’ll have millions of eyes on it”… except no one looks.

Nadya 2y ago
As opposed to the “security” of closed source software? Where severe vulns are left in as long as they aren't publicized because it would take too much development time to justify fixing and the company doesn't make money fixing vulns - it makes money creating new features. And since it isn't a security-related product any lapses in security are an "Oopsy woopsy we screwed up" and everyone moves on with their lives? Even companies that are supposed to get security right have constant screw ups that are only fixed when someone goes poking around where they probably shouldn't and thankfully happens to not be malicious.
- LittleShaman 2y ago
  I think your comment works as a reply to claiming closed source is more secure than open source - you try to bring them both to the same level. I dont think it replies to what the user asks though. It seems reasonable expecting widely used open source software to be studied by many people. If thats true it would be good to question why this wasnt caught by anyone. Ignoring all ssl errors is not something you need to be an expert to know is bad...
  - Nadya 2y ago
    Codebases outside of security-contexts are rarely audited, much less professionally so. The culture of code reviewing PR's from 14 years ago is a little different from today and is also why any "quick hacks to make things work" should always have some form of "//HACK: REVIEW OR REMOVE BY <DATE>" attached to it to make it easy to find. From a security perspective there are only two kinds of code bases: open & closed. By deduction one of those will have more eyeballs on the codebase than the other even if "nobody looks". Case in point: It may have taken 14 years but someone looked. Had the code base been closed source that may never have happened because it might not have been possible to ever happen. It's also very easy to point to the number of security issues that never made it into production because it was caught in an open source code review by passerbys and other contributors while the PR was waiting to be merged. The fact it was caught at all is a point for open source security - not against it. Even if it took 14 years.