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Malicious Subtitles Threaten Kodi, VLC and Popcorn Time Users

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201–210 of 234 posts

Re: Malicious Subtitles Threaten Kodi, VLC and Popcorn Time Users

#201
post #200
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh look, it's the Rust Evangelism Strike Force at work again.

Please don't react to provocation by making the thread worse (a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls).

How are you so sure it's trolling? Someone from the Rust Team has defended such behavior as good marketing [0].

[0] https://lobste.rs/s/wq6eov/changes_i_would_make_go#c_ofxtj1

Re: Malicious Subtitles Threaten Kodi, VLC and Popcorn Time Users

#202
post #172

I did security research on VLC on Windows a year or two ago. I may be remembering incorrectly, but last I recall every module was protected by ASLR. Which means that remote code execution is not likely because there is no scripting or network comms to dynamically create a valid ROP chain. I also didn't check for executable heaps at the time but given that all heaps are non executable (which they really shouldn't be e…

ROP: return oriented programming ASLR: Address space layer randomization Having ASLR is not bullet proof to remote code execution, e.g. iOS has ASLR for a long time and can still be jailbroken (which usually involves a code injection etc). The key is info leak, e.g. if you somehow can reliably find the memory location of open() syscall, the memory location of the whole libc can be inferred, and libc is usually large…

Most of moderns RCE POCs lift off a scripting engine (VBS for Office, Javascript for browsers, ActiveX for Flash, etc..) in order to facilitate exploitation. The only ones which does not use a script engine are POC exploiting a "network" vuln (like SMB).

Scriptless 0day RCE is still possible in a ROP+ALSR world, but exploitation is a real bitch. Ex : https://scarybeastsecurity.blogspot.fr/2016/11/0day-exploit-...

Re: Malicious Subtitles Threaten Kodi, VLC and Popcorn Time Users

#203
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only VLC had been re-written in rust this would never have happened. For shame.

We ban accounts for trolling, so please don't do that here. Also, you've posted many uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments. We ban accounts for that too, so please don't do that either.

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll remember to use a throwaway next time.

Re: Malicious Subtitles Threaten Kodi, VLC and Popcorn Time Users

#205
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We ban accounts for trolling, so please don't do that here. Also, you've posted many uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments. We ban accounts for that too, so please don't do that either.

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll remember to use a throwaway next time.

No, that's not the point and now you're antagonizing the moderating team. You were asked, and warned, "Do not do that" so, don't do it under your usual name, or a throwaway. There is no shortage of places on the internet to cause trouble. This isn't one of them.

Re: Malicious Subtitles Threaten Kodi, VLC and Popcorn Time Users

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, but valid responses range from "I have a life" to "it's not my project" to "I don't want to". Odd that you think criticism depends on contribution.

those are likely most of the same reasons these apps are not sandboxed (switching "not my project" with "I'm not payed work on this").

So open source always gets a free pass? "You should be doing X as what you're doing represents a security threat." "Well, submit a patch then neener neener."

C'mon.

Re: Malicious Subtitles Threaten Kodi, VLC and Popcorn Time Users

#208
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even multi-process. Threads on Linux can have their own seccomp profiles. You don't need to sandbox absolutely everything at the same time either. In this case opening the file in the main, unrestricted app and spawning a new thread that will read from the existing FD and only send you simple, time sorted messages over a shared IPC/pipe is not that crazy. Other points may be more tricky, and it's a good list of p…

> Threads on Linux can have their own seccomp profiles. Not on Windwows or on macOS. > new thread that will read from the existing FD and only send you simple, time sorted messages over a shared IPC/pipe is not that crazy. Of course that does not solve anything, because your demuxer|decoders|output needs access to the FS, have access to kernel-mode and those are the dangerous parts.

> > Threads on Linux can have their own seccomp profiles.

> Not on Windwows or on macOS.

It's a shame, then, that Windows & macOS are holding back security improvements for software running on Linux. I understand (& even agree with!) your desire to have a sandboxing mechanism which runs acceptably on all supported systems; it's just sad that this security mechanism in the Linux kernel can't be taken advantage of in vlc.

Re: Malicious Subtitles Threaten Kodi, VLC and Popcorn Time Users

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Java doesn't have fearless concurrency, zero-cost abstractions or move semantics.

"Fearless concurrency" and "zero-cost abstractions" sound a lot like meaningless marketing terms.

Dunno about "fearless concurrency," but "zero-cost abstractions" and "move semantics" are straight off the front page of rust-lang.org. So they're kind of marketing-ish in trying to make you go "hmm sounds intriguing" and click to find out more.
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