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Many packages suddenly disappeared

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Re: Many packages suddenly disappeared

#121
post #5

PSA: Please be cautious because this is an excellent opportunity for taking over packages and injecting malware by malicious people. Example: https://www.npmjs.com/package/duplexer3 which has 4M monthly downloads just reappeared, published by a fresh npm user. They published another two versions since then, so it's possible they've initially republished unchanged package, but now are messing with the code. Previously…

And all this is happening just as after the public release of a serious exploit which allows malicious code to do all sorts of nefarious things when it is somehow installed on the target machine. Hmm.

Given that there's hints, at least, that the problems were caused by some particular developer's actions, I wonder about the security model for package-managed platforms altogether now. If I were a big cybercrime ring, the first thing I'd do would be, get a bunch of thugs together and knock on the front door of a developer of a widely-used package; "help us launch [the sort of attack we're seeing here] or we'll [be very upset with you] with this wrench." Is there a valid defense for a platform whose security relies on the unanimous cooperation of a widely-scattered developer base?

Re: Many packages suddenly disappeared

#122
post #50

Yikes, what is it about node/npm/javascript that makes it feel like a house of cards?

I have recently taken over an Angular project (with a C# backend, thankfully) at my job. It took two hours to get it to even compile correctly because some dependencies were apparently outdated in package.json and it just ran on the other dev's machine by accident. I don't understand why I need over 100 dependencies for a simple Angular Single Page App that pulls JSON from the backend and pushes JSON back. Meanwhile,…

Thankfully we now have package-lock.json

Re: Many packages suddenly disappeared

#126
post #5

PSA: Please be cautious because this is an excellent opportunity for taking over packages and injecting malware by malicious people. Example: https://www.npmjs.com/package/duplexer3 which has 4M monthly downloads just reappeared, published by a fresh npm user. They published another two versions since then, so it's possible they've initially republished unchanged package, but now are messing with the code. Previously…

How does RubyGems handle a package being removed and replaced by a different (and maybe malicious) actor? Not allow a package to be deleted? Block the package name from being claimed by someone else?

Re: Many packages suddenly disappeared

#127
module.exports = typeof Promise === 'function' ? Promise : require('pinkie');

I can't even install webpack-dev-server. Because this package is missing.

EDIT: it's back

[1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48131550/nodemon-install...

[2]: https://github.com/npm/registry/issues/255

Re: Many packages suddenly disappeared

#128

Yikes, what is it about node/npm/javascript that makes it feel like a house of cards?

How about the idea that Node has been a hack from day one?

Reminds me of this genius talk: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...

Re: Many packages suddenly disappeared

#129
We really need to hear from NPM why this happened.

There is currently no way for a user to remove their own packages or unpublish packages anymore from the public NPM API ( a change following the `left-pad` incident ).

This leads me to believe this was an internal NPM error. My guess is employee error.

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