Reading the comments, looks like bad/old code mixed with a big update rather than anything malicious. I even ran into themes that killed my KDE last night. Had to purge the configs themes to get it working. Damn glad I didn't wipe my entire setup.
You must have heard that old chestnut about how “the weakest security link in the security chain is the user” by now. There is nothing any technology can do if the user decides to install insecure stuff. Even before today, the KDE Store prominently displayed warnings about being careful with the content.
At some point we should understand and agree that PEBKAC is a real thing. Logic dictates not to blame Linux and hotdog, and instead understand the consequence of using unverified/unvetted software.
Well, yes: the store does advise caution, as we have little control over themes and widgets uploaded by their parties. The same way we would advise caution about running random software downloaded from the internet. That said, it does say KDE Store, so we should have some degree of control over it for our users’ sake. That is what we are working on.
That said part II, we can’t do with it the wider communities support. There simply isn’t the human resources necessary. The 2 options we have are to close down the store completely (but then people will just go to random GitHub repos and download stuff from there), or try to leverage the community to help us locate and remove (or at least quarantine) dodgy products.
One obvious fact that I though would never need to be reiterated (but here we are):
Almost all OpenSource licenses approved by OSI and/or FSF have "Disclaimer of Warranty" clause in one way or another. This is from MIT:
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
Fix the backends so that for example dolphin extensions are directly installed in the correct way and dont even need such scripts
Restrict extensions and themes to be nonexecutable at least by default
Involve the community to mark “dangerous addons” that need executable scripts to install themselves or work; and to report malicious addons; and to add an enforced test before the addon is published
Of course a dolphin extension always executes code. I think hiring a bunch of KDE users as pretesters could work, to enforce that every extension needs to be tested by the 2 community members to end up in the store. There could also always be a way to unhide untested addons etc.
And enforcing stricter guidelines for the extensions is also important of course
A: have a hotdog you buy, which you eat with your teeth and your gut and you know how to do it (and also that hotdog doesnt interfere with your body, its a theme not actual molecules that comparison still makes no sense)
B: have a hotdog that decides how it is eaten, and manipulates your body to eat it in any arbitrary way
@Pantherina
I'm sorry that this bug have happened.
But did you, or whoever faced this bug, "eat" it with your "teeth" though? No they didn't. Why? Because like any proprietary software, OpenSource tools also come with certain terms and conditions that user is expected to read, digest, understand, accept, and then utilize the tool:
@Pantherina
I agree, although there are three things worth mentioning:
The conventional Android is not that opensource. It is bundled with tons of proprietary Google stuff. That's why de-googled Android does not provide as smooth experience.
Android does not restrict you to "only OpenSource" components. WhatsApp for example is widely used and is not FLOSS.
Degoogled Android is just as possible. There are nearly all the tools needed (apart from system level stuff like backups) that work without many privileges or with a fine grained permission system
Never said that, but its security allows you to use random stuff and not fear malware. GrapheneOS just does the last % to complete it, like storage and contact scopes.
@possiblylinux127@wisha And how would sandboxing a malicious script inside a theme that is supposed to change the look of your desktop work? They installed and ran something that rm'd their home directory. I'm honestly curious how you'd solve this.
A more locked-down theming API could help. For example Firefox themes are always 100% safe to install. That said, Firefox themes are almost useless (they’re more like color schemes lol), and no one wants to lose KDE’s powerful customizability so 🤷🤷
Perhaps having different categories with different limitations would work well. Using the firefox example, prioritize the use of WebExtensions, but keep XUL/XPCOM with appropriate warnings.
If it ran in a sandbox it would just wipe its own files instead of the system. Under no circumstances should a plugin from some random guy online be running with such high privileges