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> the team hopes to have an alpha release before the end of 2015. "I wouldn't recommend logging in to your bank with it," he said, "but it should be usable as a

by slimsag 11y ago

> the team hopes to have an alpha release before the end of 2015. "I wouldn't recommend logging in to your bank with it," he said, "but it should be usable as a basic browser." What? Was this meant as a joke in relation to something else? -- Why shouldn't you log into banking sites with it?

thomasfoster96 11y ago
An alpha release of a new browser engine is likely to have quite a few security bugs. Don't risk your bank account details for the sake of testing a new browser engine.
- slimsag 11y ago
  Fair point. Not trying to minimize what you're saying -- But I am genuinely curious as to how you'd test such a vast code-base written by so many different people for security issue? e.g. how will 1.0 be any more secure than alpha aside from developers having more time to "run into" the security issues by sheer luck/accident? Maybe someone vet the code by hand -- or maybe they will use a security testing suite to automate it? If so, wouldn't it make sense to do that before accepting code that could potentially introduce security bugs?
  - toyg 11y ago
    > how you'd test such a vast code-base written by so many different people for security issue? I think their point is that correct, well-thought-out and well-tested code (i.e. doing exactly what it needs to do, without side effects and errors) will inherently be more secure than any hacked-together it-runs-ship-it MVP/alpha/demo release (which is what Servo is, at the moment). Security-specific tests would be done in the same way as they're done for any mainstream engine out there.
larsberg 11y ago
The comment was meant to be lighthearted, but on the serious side we both: 1) Probably won't have done the full sort of inspection of our SSL cert checking to really ensure you aren't being MITM'd. 2) We won't have a chemspill / 0-day security fix infrastructure in place, so we won't have a way to push down fixes to 0-day exploits in OpenSSL, the JS engine, etc. I'd love to be at a better point on those features by the end of this year, but it's not likely with our current roadmap & resourcing plan.

by slimsag 11y ago

thomasfoster96 11y ago

An alpha release of a new browser engine is likely to have quite a few security bugs. Don't risk your bank account details for the sake of testing a new browser engine.

slimsag 11y ago
Fair point. Not trying to minimize what you're saying -- But I am genuinely curious as to how you'd test such a vast code-base written by so many different people for security issue? e.g. how will 1.0 be any more secure than alpha aside from developers having more time to "run into" the security issues by sheer luck/accident? Maybe someone vet the code by hand -- or maybe they will use a security testing suite to automate it? If so, wouldn't it make sense to do that before accepting code that could potentially introduce security bugs?
- toyg 11y ago
  > how you'd test such a vast code-base written by so many different people for security issue? I think their point is that correct, well-thought-out and well-tested code (i.e. doing exactly what it needs to do, without side effects and errors) will inherently be more secure than any hacked-together it-runs-ship-it MVP/alpha/demo release (which is what Servo is, at the moment). Security-specific tests would be done in the same way as they're done for any mainstream engine out there.

larsberg 11y ago

The comment was meant to be lighthearted, but on the serious side we both: 1) Probably won't have done the full sort of inspection of our SSL cert checking to really ensure you aren't being MITM'd. 2) We won't have a chemspill / 0-day security fix infrastructure in place, so we won't have a way to push down fixes to 0-day exploits in OpenSSL, the JS engine, etc. I'd love to be at a better point on those features by the end of this year, but it's not likely with our current roadmap & resourcing plan.