Re: [webappsec] POLL: Getting CSP 1.1 to LCWD

On Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 1:01 PM, Carson, Cory <Cory.Carson@boeing.com> wrote:

> On item 6, Disagree. I argue that item 6 is out of scope for Content
> Security Policy based on these points:
>
> 1. Item 6 is counter to the stated goal of CSP. Content Security Policy is
> intended to allow the content to request that the user agent restrict what
> the content may do. From the charter posted at
> http://www.w3.org/2011/08/appsecwg-charter.html :
>     “The goal of this specification is to reduce attack surface by
> specifying overall rules for what content may or may not do, thus
> preventing violation of security assumptions by attackers who are able to
> partially manipulate that content.”
> Item 6 would change Content Security Policy to allow the content to
> restrict what the user agent may do to the content, which is a very
> different thing.
>

I respectfully disagree. The intent of the bug is precisely what is stated
in the WG charter and the explicit goals of CSP:

>From Charter

"Attack Surface Reduction: The WG will design mechanisms to allow
applications to restrict or forbid potentially dangerous features which
they do not intend to use, thus limiting the attack surface."

>From CSP 1.1

"This declaration allows the client to detect and block malicious scripts
injected into the application by an attacker."

This bug report is predicated on the following:

(1) that third-party add-ons/extensions that inject script into a web page
for which CSP policies have been declared can behave in a manner that is
detrimental to the interests of the user and the web page author;

(2) that third-party add-ons/extensions have been and can be compromised,
and, as such, contribute to the potential attack surface in a manner
similar to XSS;

(3) that, in general, user agent vendors do not accept legal liability for
the function of third-party add-ons/extensions;

(4) that end users are not necessarily aware of what third-party
add-ons/extensions are operating in the context of a web page, or which
inject code into or modify the behavior of that web page;

As a starting point, can we agree on these points or not? If so, then I
would suggest that the bug report is entirely consistent with the WG
Charter and CSP Scope, and that we should not make this a scope discussion.



>
> 2. Item 6 violates the Priorities of Constituencies, from the discussion
> linked at https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=23357. The
> linked bug comments provide discussion about why item 6 violates PoC, and
> why PoC is important.
>

Again, I respectfully disagree. I believe that CSP is violating the PoC and
that this bug report seeks to remedy this situation. I discuss this in
comment #8 [1]. In particular, I note that the example of autocomplete=off
and whether a Password Manager is enabled or not in Adam's blog post [2] is
not a good analogy here because, in the present case with CSP, there is no
way for an author to specify the equivalent of "don't use the password
manager" *and* allow the UA to permit the user to override this request.
Instead, CSP not only doesn't provide a way for an author to declare its
preference, but it suggests a specific policy always be applied: always
enable script injection by third-party add-ons.

A better approach, where the PoC interests are better balanced, is to allow
the author to declare a preference, and to allow the UA to override this
preference in the case that the end user explicitly wishes to accept the
risk.

[1] https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=23357#c8
[2] http://www.schemehostport.com/2011/10/priority-of-constituencies.html


>
> 3. Similar to item 6, the topic of "user agents attacking the content"
> arose earlier this year on the webappsec mailing list, and was not added to
> CSP. See the thread starting at
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webappsec/2013Jan/0028.html.
> It was not successfully argued that CSP should handle this. The thread
> ended at
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webappsec/2013Jan/0043.html, a
> suggestion to rely on the security of a vendor-specific hardware product
> that is out of the reach of the user agent.
>

I believe that a third-party UA add-on is different from the UA itself.
Further, I believe the EUA employed by UA vendors probably does not cover
add-on behavior.

A web site, particularly one that wants to provide sensitive services,
e.g., financial services, emergency alert services, etc., should be able to
distinguish between its ability to trust the UA and its ability to trust
third-party add-ons/extensions.

To my knowledge, there is little or no use of UA injected script, but many
third-party add-ons do use injected script.


>
> 4. Item 6 is a quantity of work that is worthy of it's own document. The
> only other analog of content restricting the user agent itself is Encrypted
> Media Extensions, posted at http://www.w3.org/TR/encrypted-media/.
> Looking at the mailing list archives at
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-admin/, the topic's
> discussion is time intensive. Attaching this topic to the existing CSP
> document may significantly delay CSP 1.1 from moving forward due to
> discussion alone.
>

This bug report has no relation whatsoever to EME or content protection.
That is a false analogy. Rather, this bug report is about attack surface
reduction and protection of PoC.


>
> However, disagreeing on item 6 alone should not end the discussion of the
> topic. Reading this working group’s charter, I hypothesize that item 6 is
> within the mission but not the scope. I propose that the working group
> discuss the topic as the question(s): Is this topic indeed within the
> charter’s mission? If so, should the charter’s scope be expanded to include
> a new deliverable (document) for this topic?
>
>
> Cory Carson
> Application Security Team
> Boeing
>
> -----
>
> From: Glenn Adams [mailto:glenn@skynav.com]
> Sent: Monday, September 30, 2013 10:31 PM
> To: Brad Hill
> Cc: public-webappsec@w3.org
> Subject: Re: [webappsec] POLL: Getting CSP 1.1 to LCWD
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 5:23 PM, Brad Hill <hillbrad@gmail.com> wrote:
> As discussed on our last conference call and in a previous email, we are
> behind schedule on our deliverables and I would like to propose that we
> close the feature set for CSP 1.1.
>
> This is a formal poll to establish consensus.  Workgroup members, please
> take a few minutes to respond to these 6 questions to the list.
>
> 1: We should close the feature set of CSP 1.1?  Agree / Disagree
>
> 2. We should include the application of 'unsafe-eval' semantics to the
> CSSOM in the core CSP 1.1 feature set? Agree / Disagree
>
> 3. We should include the suborigin sandboxing proposal in the core CSP 1.1
> feature set? Agree / Disagree
>
> 4. We should include the "Session Origin Security" policy in the core CSP
> 1.1 feature set?  Agree / Disagree
>
> 5. We should include the "cookie-scope" policy in the core CSP 1.1 feature
> set?  Agree / Disagree
>
> Finally, we have a Formal Objection that has been registered by the Cox
> Communication representative Glenn Adams to reverse the currently specified
> behavior of allowing user-defined scripts (including from extensions).
>  Glenn has declined to raise his suggestions on this list after several
> invitations to do so, but he gave a high-level set of proposals attached to
> this bug:
>
> https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=23357
>
> 6. We should make changes to core CSP 1.1 behavior (including possibly
> specifying a new directive about user script) as requested by Bug 23357?
>  Agree / Disagree
>
> It is premature to ask for a poll on a bug report that has not been
> discussed by the WG. I would suggest that a discussion occur at the next
> scheduled teleconference. I would be happy to discuss our concerns that led
> to filing this bug report at that time.
>
>
> Please reply to this list so your views can be "on the record".  This poll
> closes at the start of our next regularly scheduled teleconference on
> October 8th at 2pm  United States Pacific Time.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Brad Hill
> co-chair, WebAppSec WG
>
>