On Aug 24, 2005, at 5:40 PM, Steve Palmer wrote:
Just a thought. I haven't considered this too deeply so I may well
be smoking crack.
In general, I would expect reputable mirrors to also mirror the MD5
checksum file. I'm not sure why they wouldn't.
I also think that rather than trying to solve all the problems at
once, the simplest solution here might also be sufficiently
effective. So why not just take this approach:
- When starting a download, look for the MD5 file in the same
location as the original. It is typically the download filename
plus the .md5 extension. You could check for other extensions/
formats too.
- If the checksum file is found, download it along with the main file.
- On completion of the download, verify the main file against the
checksum and warn the user if they don't match.
- If no checksum is found, warn the user that no checksum exists
but still download the file.
- Provide an option in Preferences to disable the warning for folks
who don't really care. Enable it by default but provide a "Don't
show me this again..." option on the warning.
The advantage of the above are that it isn't intrusive, it is user
friendly and if more browsers support the concept then it should
encourage site owners to always include the MD5 or similar checksum
even on mirrors. If other methods of verifying the file integrity
exist or are developed, they can be subsumed into the
implementation without changing the user experience.
What would be the point of such a system? Anyone who can compromise
a server to post a malicious binary would simply upload a new
checksum to go with it. Checksums hosted with the file have almost
no security value.
The suggestion only makes sense in that the mirrors are all
separately controlled, and there is a central location
(caminobrowser.org) to post a checksum, which means someone would
have to take control of two completely separate servers to slip a
malicious binary past someone checking the checksums.
-Stuart
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