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AI browser extensions are a security nightmare

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Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare

#91

Post by hgsgm »

moritzwarhier wrote: post #90
amelius wrote: post #54

Actually, aren't all browser extensions a security nightmare? Or has something changed recently?

Already commented something similar in another thread: Why is the security policy for extensions still not architected like other web permissions? There has been a shift on mobile already from "take it or leave it"-style permissions on install towards more fine grained control not overidable by the app manifest. I think Browser extensions should behave similarly. Especially when it comes to which origins an extension…

Mobile doesn't give you control over which origins it contacts.

Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare

#92

Post by notatoad »

amelius wrote: post #54

Actually, aren't all browser extensions a security nightmare? Or has something changed recently?

an extension developer can scope their extension to only run on certain URLs, and if that list changes then chrome will automatically disable it until the user re-authorizes for the new set of URLs.

so they're not a total security nightmare if they're only authorized to run on sites where you don't enter any private data. for example, looking through my extensions list, the py3redirect that autmatically redirects python2 documentation pages to python3 pages doesn't request access to anything other than python.org.

but otherwise, yeah, you're giving permission to execute arbitrary code on any website you visit, which is about as compromised as your browser can get.

Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare

#93

Post by hgsgm »

actionablefiber wrote: post #80
josteink wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like apps, extensions have an all-or-nothing attitude to permissions Browser extensions needs to declare their permissions. With Manifest V3 we’re seeing even more need to declare permissions. Any extension cannot do anything not explicitly granted to it by the user upon installation.

The issue is those extensions can withhold valuable functionality needlessly. If I download $usefulWikipediaCompanionExtension whose functionality only depends on access to *.wikipedia.org but whose manifest demands permission on all sites, I'd like to be able to tell my browser "if I'm not really on Wikipedia, only show the extension a blank page."

That's a lot more work than saying "No" to using the malware.

Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare

#94

Post by moritzwarhier »

hgsgm wrote: post #91
moritzwarhier wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Already commented something similar in another thread: Why is the security policy for extensions still not architected like other web permissions? There has been a shift on mobile already from "take it or leave it"-style permissions on install towards more fine grained control not overidable by the app manifest. I think Browser extensions should behave similarly. Especially when it comes to which origins an extension…

Mobile doesn't give you control over which origins it contacts.

Yes you are right, that came down to me after I hit the submit button. But consider my train of thought more an associative one.

I'd like an UI similar to the mobile one. I brought up the origin thing because for lots of extensions I would like that kind of UI for origin control. Origin control is part of WebExtension API, but it's during installation, which forces even well-meaning developers to request overly broad permissions for some kinds of extensions.

Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare

#95

Post by actionablefiber »

hgsgm wrote: post #93
actionablefiber wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is those extensions can withhold valuable functionality needlessly. If I download $usefulWikipediaCompanionExtension whose functionality only depends on access to *.wikipedia.org but whose manifest demands permission on all sites, I'd like to be able to tell my browser "if I'm not really on Wikipedia, only show the extension a blank page."

That's a lot more work than saying "No" to using the malware.

It's common for various counterparties, including software, to ask for much more information than they need and possibly be doing untrustworthy things with it while also providing legitimate value to the end user.

I've lied about my birthday while signing up for websites before. I've also made ad-hoc email addresses with forwarding to conceal my main email address. I've given fictitious phone numbers and I've used the names of fictional characters. I do this because I benefit from the service but I don't trust the provider to use my information responsibly.

Not a logical leap to go from there to feeding fake data to extensions when they request data that the user deems unnecessary for their functionality.

Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare

#96

Post by saurik »

actionablefiber wrote: post #95
hgsgm wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a lot more work than saying "No" to using the malware.

It's common for various counterparties, including software, to ask for much more information than they need and possibly be doing untrustworthy things with it while also providing legitimate value to the end user. I've lied about my birthday while signing up for websites before. I've also made ad-hoc email addresses with forwarding to conceal my main email address. I've given fictitious phone numbers and I've used th…

Yeah: while declaring permissions sounds cool and tries to fit into the narrative of helping protect end users who don't know how to manage anything themselves, at the end of the day it first requires an extremely opinionated central entity in charge of listings which takes a role in attempting to mediate the incentive incompatibilities (something which should raise serious ethical red flags and begs the question of conflicts of interest with respect to that player and the market that they get to fully control) but then still not only doesn't work to prevent users from getting abused, it will never work: "this app has requested access to your birthday" might be easy for end users, but (if this must be an API; but like, to the extent to which birthday is a bad example, this generalizes to every other thing that people currently must grant as "permissions") the only actually-correct solution is to always provide a concrete random date to every app by default and then allow the user to go out of their way--and this must not, under any circumstance, be something the app is allowed to prompt for or have any visibility into: this must be something the user has to initiate through external UI--to say "I grant this app access to my real birthday" (which, to the app, would have to look like the user merely changed the setting on their birthday to some other random date, as opposed to "the user finally gave us permission to see the same date that they can share to every other app").

Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare

#97

Post by mattigames »

kpw94 wrote: post #89
amelius wrote: post #54

Actually, aren't all browser extensions a security nightmare? Or has something changed recently?

Yeah parts of the article would still be as valid if this was about regular extensions. The main difference is that AI extension, by design, send the content of the pages you browse to a server. A malicious "calculator" extension could also send all the content to a server, and extension users don't really have an idea of what each extension is actually doing. So skip the "Malware posing as AI browser extension" sect…

If a calculator extension is caught sending any data at all over the network they immediately would be suspicious, but evey AI extension has plausible deniability when making any requests, most can send all the webpage including form inputs and still have such deniability.

Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare

#98

Post by pixl97 »

nathan_compton wrote: post #60
NumberWangMan wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a definition of intelligence that rules out large language models, but that does not also rule out large portions of humanity? A lot of people would readily admit that they don't have programming aptitude and would probably end up just memorizing things. Do we say those people are not intelligent? It seems to me that the perceived difference is mostly in being able to admit that you don't know something, rat…

I have to admit this is a genuinely interesting question. Language models demonstrably do have some models of the world inside of them. And, I admit, what I say that they aren't intelligent, I mostly mean they are very stupid, rather than like a machine or algorithm. Artificial stupidity is progress.

Ok, so from your other comment, I think this is where our definition of intelligence is breaking down...

Biological agents have a consistent world model based on their capabilities because an inconsistent model would lead to lack of reproduction or death. We could call this environmental intelligence.

Meanwhile we have LLMs that have appear to have what I would consider 'micro' world models for some things, but not a large consistent world model. I'm guessing this is due to a few things, but for example not being culled for bad world models would be one, and another is they are only grounded in text and we've not really explored multi-modal grounding in models very far.

I guess what's going to be interesting is to see how multi-modal and embodied models do as they are trained in the environment and create a more consistent world model.

Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare

#99

Post by sh34r »

sebzim4500 wrote: post #49
dguest wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my field it's accepted (by some) that you write "AI" for your grant proposal and say "ML" when you talk to colleagues and want to be taken seriously. It feels a bit wrong to me, because as you say it's arguably a grift, in this case on the taxpayer who funds science grants. More charitably it might just be the applicant admitting that they have no idea what they are doing, and the funding agency seeing this as a g…

Most people outside of academia understand AI to include way more than just ML. People refer to the bots in video games as AI and they are probably a few hundred lines of straightforward code. I don't think there is anything wrong with using the colloquial definition of the term when communicating with funding agencies/the public.

I think there’s nuance to be had here. Terms have been overloaded, and individuals aren’t necessarily acting in bad faith. ML can be considered to be a subset of AI.

That being said, ML is extremely boring to me, and I really do think a lot of the research is an enormous grift. Hop on the bandwagon, read a stats book, flagrantly plagiarize it, submit to CS journal that no statisticians read, publish and don’t perish, rinse, repeat.

It feels like society has spent billions of dollars on bad academics continuously reinventing applied statistics over and over again, but now with Big Data and a brand refresh! It’s like a whole generation of academics watched one too many terrible Hollywood remakes. It broke their brains, and now they’re only doing remakes too.

They ran out of statistics content to steal, so now the latest and greatest thing is plagiarizing classical AI works from the late 20th century and calling it “reinforcement learning.”

It’s all very frustrating. We could’ve funded a Manhattan project for fusion power, but instead thousands of our most brilliant people are wasting their time and humanity’s carbon budget to create the most powerful spambot ever.

Re: AI browser extensions are a security nightmare

#100

Post by dylan604 »

moritzwarhier wrote: post #90
amelius wrote: post #54

Actually, aren't all browser extensions a security nightmare? Or has something changed recently?

Already commented something similar in another thread: Why is the security policy for extensions still not architected like other web permissions? There has been a shift on mobile already from "take it or leave it"-style permissions on install towards more fine grained control not overidable by the app manifest. I think Browser extensions should behave similarly. Especially when it comes to which origins an extension…

you can make a warning as big and scary as you can, and people will just blindly hit accept/agree/ok. the look/design of the banner is not what will stop people from hitting ok, as at this point, i don't think anything will
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