Re: [Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-18 Thread Stuart Bishop
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On 17/01/2004, at 10:34 AM, Jim Fulton wrote:

I I'm pretty sure that I can redo the way we protect dictionaries and
lists so that we can provide backward compatability.  If I can do 
this,
I will, because backward compatability *is* important, especially for 
bug-fix
releases.
This is done and checked into the Zope 2.7 branch (Zope-2_7-branch).

Stuart, can you try this out and make sure that your application
works as it did before?
All appears to be working as before. If this is definitely
deprecated, I'll note that in AccessControl.py.
I don't have a problem with deprecating this feature if it makes
the Zope code saner - I was only using it because it was there
and did what I wanted.
I don't particularly like the idea of this mechanism working
for getattr access but not for getitem access. I've always
tended to stick with using getitem over getattr, partly as a
holdover from when it was incredibly painful to mix getattr
overrides with ExtensionClass, and partly because you are less
likely to recursively shoot yourself in the foot. Indeed - an
argument could be made for deprecating getattr in favor of
getitem, as the latter could make use of Unicode keys if Zope's
traversal mechanisms were updated to cope.
- --  
Stuart Bishop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.stuartbishop.net/
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Re: [Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-18 Thread Jim Fulton
Dieter Maurer wrote:
Jim Fulton wrote at 2004-1-16 18:54 -0500:

...

 For security checks, the accessed object should be the driving factor
 and not the particular way the access is made.
Well, sorry, that's not what this is about.  We are talking about what
to do when accessing objects without roles.  The ability to take
the name into account is a feature that only makes sense for named, ie
attribute access, imo.


"item" is a blurred term in Python:

  As you know, it refers both to sequences (indexed via integers)
  and mappings (indexed via something hashable; often a string).
I don't see this as blurred at all.  A sequence is, mathematically,
a special case of a mapping.
When some mechanism checks whether access should be granted to
individual items in a mapping, this mechanism will (almost surely) need
to know the key used in the access -- and I do not see any reason
why it should not be informed about the key.
I question whether there is a need to check "whether access should
be granted to individual items in a mapping".
I suggest that such flexibility makes the security system needlessly
complex.
I do not argue that the handler registered with "setDefaultAccess"
should be used for "__getitem__" access checking.
Cool

However, when it is called (as it seems to be the case),
then it should be called consistently and provide
as much information as useful -- this includes information
about both arguments to the "__getitem__" method.
Ah, so you are arguing that the handler should simply not
be called for item access. I can buy that.  I don't think
that would make Stuart happy though. :)
Even more essential for security related issues:

  A precise description when what security related functions
  are called with what arguments.
The current state in this respect is far from optimal.
Special points of my concern:
I assume that you are refering to the security policy.

  *  I never saw a description of the difference between the
 "accessed" and "container" parameters to "validate".
  *  I never saw a description for the three way outcome
 of "validate": "0", "1" and "raise Unauthorized".
 Why in hell is "unauthorized" encoded sometimes
 as "return 0" and sometimes as "raise Unauthorited".
 Looking at the code, I see that "accessed/container"
 has to do with this destinction. However, as
 "accessed/container" is unspecified, this does not clarify
 much.
These are valid points. This should be documented
much better than it has been. I'll note that both of the
things you ask about relate to no-longer used features
of the security policy.
I'll make an attempt at a brief
explanation:
- The *original* reason for the accessed and validate parameters was
  to permit the distinction between acquired and non-acquired
  attributes.  As a comment in the security policy code notes,
  we no-longer pay any attention to the accessed argument.
- The *original* use for the 0 return value from the security
  policy was to suggest that, although access to the value provided
  was unauthorized, the application might provide a different value
  that would be.  This was to support a questionable feature of
  trying to acquire another value of the first value found through
  acquisition was unauthorized.  The current Zope security policy
  never returns 0.
Much of the complexity in the Zope 2 security policy has to do with:

- The fact that the security system is based on looking at
  assertions for values, and
- The fact that we can't make assertions on immutable values
  (e.g. strings).
Certainly, you have to think about how you provide access to data.
Lots of data we provide access to has no security assertions of it's
own.


Maybe, we should change this for Zope 3?
In Zope 3 (and, I hope 2.9), it will be easier to make security assertions
about things you can't make assertions about now.
The fundamental change in Zope 3 is that we make assertions
about *names*, not values.  This makes it possible to talk about
access to attributes whose values are strings. Essentially, we
are placing the resytictions on the *access*, not the values.

It would have been possible for Zope 2 since a long time --
but tightening security has high risk to break many applicitation
(as the latest security fixes demonstrated again).
A mistake in Zope 2, we've made the mistake of trying to
provide backward compatability at almost any cost.  This has led to
parts of the framework being far more complicated than it should
be.
In the future, we've got to do a better job of managing change
so that we can clean things up.

Think of accessor methods that return data. If data needs to be
protected, you need to think about the access methods you provide.
In the future, item access will work like this:

   You will be able to protect __setitem__ operations.  Once
   someone can use setitem, they can access any key.  The value
   stored with that key may have pretections of it's own, or not.
   That's a matter of application des

Re: [Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-17 Thread Dieter Maurer
Jim Fulton wrote at 2004-1-16 18:54 -0500:
> ...
>>   For security checks, the accessed object should be the driving factor
>>   and not the particular way the access is made.
>
>Well, sorry, that's not what this is about.  We are talking about what
>to do when accessing objects without roles.  The ability to take
>the name into account is a feature that only makes sense for named, ie
>attribute access, imo.

"item" is a blurred term in Python:

  As you know, it refers both to sequences (indexed via integers)
  and mappings (indexed via something hashable; often a string).

When some mechanism checks whether access should be granted to
individual items in a mapping, this mechanism will (almost surely) need
to know the key used in the access -- and I do not see any reason
why it should not be informed about the key.


I do not argue that the handler registered with "setDefaultAccess"
should be used for "__getitem__" access checking.

However, when it is called (as it seems to be the case),
then it should be called consistently and provide
as much information as useful -- this includes information
about both arguments to the "__getitem__" method.


Even more essential for security related issues:

  A precise description when what security related functions
  are called with what arguments.

The current state in this respect is far from optimal.
Special points of my concern:

  *  I never saw a description of the difference between the
 "accessed" and "container" parameters to "validate".

  *  I never saw a description for the three way outcome
 of "validate": "0", "1" and "raise Unauthorized".
 Why in hell is "unauthorized" encoded sometimes
 as "return 0" and sometimes as "raise Unauthorited".
 Looking at the code, I see that "accessed/container"
 has to do with this destinction. However, as
 "accessed/container" is unspecified, this does not clarify
 much.

>>   When we do not get this consistent, we open new hidden
>>   security holes (as one must always think: can this
>>   same object be accessed also in a different way
>>   and how have I to secure this way).
>
>Certainly, you have to think about how you provide access to data.
>Lots of data we provide access to has no security assertions of it's
>own.

Maybe, we should change this for Zope 3?

It would have been possible for Zope 2 since a long time --
but tightening security has high risk to break many applicitation
(as the latest security fixes demonstrated again).

> Think of accessor methods that return data. If data needs to be
>protected, you need to think about the access methods you provide.
>
>In the future, item access will work like this:
>
> You will be able to protect __setitem__ operations.  Once
> someone can use setitem, they can access any key.  The value
> stored with that key may have pretections of it's own, or not.
> That's a matter of application design.

Fine!

However, security related rules are important enough that
they deserve thourough and prominent specification/documentation.

-- 
Dieter

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Re: [Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-16 Thread Jim Fulton
Dieter Maurer wrote:
Jim Fulton wrote at 2004-1-15 17:23 -0500:

BTW, telling me that an algorithm has changed doesn't constitute
a use case. :) I know that algorithm has changed.  I assert that
we don't need the feature that the change broke.  I am open
to evidence to the contrary.


Do you have a convincing reason to change the behaviour?

I argue here with consistency:

  When the "setDefaultAccess" function is called, it should
  always be called with sensible (and consistent) arguments.
  In my view, it is not consistent, that the function
  is called with the attribute name when the attribute is accessed
  via "attribute access syntax" but
  called with "None" when the same attribute it accessed
  via "item access syntax".
Huh?  Nobody's calling setDefaultAccess with None.  Stuart is calling it
with a handler function. AFAICT, the use of a handler fucntion is
undocumented. It should be documented, but with different semantics
than Stuart expects. :)
  For security checks, the accessed object should be the driving factor
  and not the particular way the access is made.
Well, sorry, that's not what this is about.  We are talking about what
to do when accessing objects without roles.  The ability to take
the name into account is a feature that only makes sense for named, ie
attribute access, imo.
  When we do not get this consistent, we open new hidden
  security holes (as one must always think: can this
  same object be accessed also in a different way
  and how have I to secure this way).
Certainly, you have to think about how you provide access to data.
Lots of data we provide access to has no security assertions of it's
own.  Think of accessor methods that return data. If data needs to be
protected, you need to think about the access methods you provide.
In the future, item access will work like this:

You will be able to protect __setitem__ operations.  Once
someone can use setitem, they can access any key.  The value
stored with that key may have pretections of it's own, or not.
That's a matter of application design.
However, for backward compataibility, we'll leave things the way
they were, at least until Zope 2.9.
Jim

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Re: [Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-16 Thread Jim Fulton
Jim Fulton wrote:
Stuart Bishop wrote:

...

It was never intended that the ability to control unprotected sub-objects
by name would apply to items.  It was sloppy coding on my part that item 
indexes
(yes, indexes, like, say, 1) and keys were passed as names.  I can 
certainly
understand why people looking at the code and trying things out would come
to the wrong conclusion.
But it would depend on which code they looked at. For example,
in 2.6.2, the key is not passed to validate when traversing using
getitem in unrestrictedTraverse.  For this reason, it's brittle to rely on
this, even without the recent security changes.
Fundamentally, it's wrong to use the same mechanism for attributes and
item keys or indexes.  In the recent security work, we tried to address
this by not passing the name for for item access. Unfortunately, this broke
some code.  I *think* that there cannot be too many cases of this.
I I'm pretty sure that I can redo the way we protect dictionaries and
lists so that we can provide backward compatability.  If I can do this,
I will, because backward compatability *is* important, especially for 
bug-fix
releases.
This is done and checked into the Zope 2.7 branch (Zope-2_7-branch).

Stuart, can you try this out and make sure that your application
works as it did before?
Jim

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Re: [Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-16 Thread Jim Fulton
Stuart Bishop wrote:
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1
On 16/01/2004, at 9:23 AM, Jim Fulton wrote:

Dieter Maurer wrote:

Jim Fulton wrote at 2004-1-15 10:03 -0500:

...
Right. The name attribute was intended for attribute-based access.
IMO, it makes no sense to consider key values when doing security
checks.


I had thought we had more,
More what?

but most of that logic is now in
a ComputedAttribute __ac_local_roles__ and in our __getitem__
hooks. What we currently have is a BTree storing key -> value.
Valid keys are defined by a schema. If that schema changes, we
do not want to lose the information until we are sure it has
been archived, but we no longer want it available.
The sorts of things we *were* doing was allowing access to
certain attributes
I'm confused.  Attributes of what? Above you are refering to
a BTree.
if the currently authenticated user had
required permissions on a related object.
eg. A bag-of-metadata has an associated Publisher object,
and the Publisher has Editors (implemented as a local
role assigned in the Publisher). Access to bits of
metadata would be calculated based on the bag's schema,
which determined if each bit was private, public or shared.
Shared was available to people with certain permissions
on the bag, or to people with certain permissions on the
associated Publisher (the Editors). Some metadata has
calculated privacy settings (eg. EmailAddress is shared
or public depending on the value of PrivateEmailAddress)
We now have the situation that this is possible if bag-of-metadata
is accessed via getattr (stored as attributes on the object),
but not via getitem (stored anywhere else).
My suggestion would be to wrap the BTree in an object that accesses
it via getattr.
I can also imagine BTrees keyed to userid (eg storing settings),
where people can only access their branch or branches of people
in their workgroup.
Sure, but, presumably, these settings would be objects that would
have p[rotections defined for their attributes.
BTW, telling me that an algorithm has changed doesn't constitute
a use case. :) I know that algorithm has changed.  I assert that
we don't need the feature that the change broke.  I am open
to evidence to the contrary.


Its probably a feature we don't *need*, but some of us happen
to be using it, and have been using this documented feature
since Zope 2.5.
Where is it documented? I did a quick look, and couldn'd find documentation
of this feature.
I can probably work around it (although it
means the next milestone release next week will be on b3
instead of b4), but I'd assumed that if one person who
is using the beta triggered this issue, there will be plenty
more who may be upset when they try porting their apps to 2.7.0
release.


Treating item access and attribute access the same way has some inherent
problems.  We ran into this in the security work. We needed to provide
protection for some methods on lists and dictionaries.  when we implemented
this, we found we could no-longer access their items.
It was never intended that the ability to control unprotected sub-objects
by name would apply to items.  It was sloppy coding on my part that item indexes
(yes, indexes, like, say, 1) and keys were passed as names.  I can certainly
understand why people looking at the code and trying things out would come
to the wrong conclusion.
Fundamentally, it's wrong to use the same mechanism for attributes and
item keys or indexes.  In the recent security work, we tried to address
this by not passing the name for for item access. Unfortunately, this broke
some code.  I *think* that there cannot be too many cases of this.
I I'm pretty sure that I can redo the way we protect dictionaries and
lists so that we can provide backward compatability.  If I can do this,
I will, because backward compatability *is* important, especially for bug-fix
releases.
I'll say, however that this "feature" should be considered deprecated.
We will *not* allow you to control access based on item keys or indexes
in Zope 3.  I *hope* to merge the Zope 2 and Zope 3 protection schemes in
Zope 2.9, so you should expect this feature to go away in Zope 2.9.
Jim

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Re: [Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-16 Thread Jim Fulton
Dieter Maurer wrote:
Jim Fulton wrote at 2004-1-15 17:23 -0500:

...
None should never be passed for attribute accesses. If it is,
then there is a bug.  The case of dictionary mapping names to
whatever is for attribute access.  We are talking about item/key
access. I haven't seen a use case for needing to specify separate access
for separate key values.


The original problem report (at least the one I read in
this mailing list) was that a function
registered with "setDefaultAccess" was called with
"None" as "name" argument.
I expect that such a function is not called for dictionary or list access
but only for access to (class) instances.
When it is called, the name is relevant, as usually the name
will be used to distinquish which attributes should be accessible
and which not. 
Well, the proginal message in this thread refers to an item access.

***
*** 312,318 
  # Skip directly to item access
  o = object[name]
  # Check access to the item.
! if not validate(object, object, name, o):
  raise Unauthorized, name
  object = o
  continue
The code above this:

if not name or name[0] == '_':

Checks for empty names or names beginning with underscrores, neither of
which are legal attribite names.
So, this does seem to be about item access.

Jim

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Re: [Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-16 Thread Stuart Bishop
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Hash: SHA1
On 16/01/2004, at 9:23 AM, Jim Fulton wrote:

Dieter Maurer wrote:
Jim Fulton wrote at 2004-1-15 10:03 -0500:
...
Right. The name attribute was intended for attribute-based access.
IMO, it makes no sense to consider key values when doing security
checks.
I had thought we had more, but most of that logic is now in
a ComputedAttribute __ac_local_roles__ and in our __getitem__
hooks. What we currently have is a BTree storing key -> value.
Valid keys are defined by a schema. If that schema changes, we
do not want to lose the information until we are sure it has
been archived, but we no longer want it available.
The sorts of things we *were* doing was allowing access to
certain attributes if the currently authenticated user had
required permissions on a related object.
eg. A bag-of-metadata has an associated Publisher object,
and the Publisher has Editors (implemented as a local
role assigned in the Publisher). Access to bits of
metadata would be calculated based on the bag's schema,
which determined if each bit was private, public or shared.
Shared was available to people with certain permissions
on the bag, or to people with certain permissions on the
associated Publisher (the Editors). Some metadata has
calculated privacy settings (eg. EmailAddress is shared
or public depending on the value of PrivateEmailAddress)
We now have the situation that this is possible if bag-of-metadata
is accessed via getattr (stored as attributes on the object),
but not via getitem (stored anywhere else).
I can also imagine BTrees keyed to userid (eg storing settings),
where people can only access their branch or branches of people
in their workgroup.
BTW, telling me that an algorithm has changed doesn't constitute
a use case. :) I know that algorithm has changed.  I assert that
we don't need the feature that the change broke.  I am open
to evidence to the contrary.
Its probably a feature we don't *need*, but some of us happen
to be using it, and have been using this documented feature
since Zope 2.5. I can probably work around it (although it
means the next milestone release next week will be on b3
instead of b4), but I'd assumed that if one person who
is using the beta triggered this issue, there will be plenty
more who may be upset when they try porting their apps to 2.7.0
release.
- --  
Stuart Bishop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.stuartbishop.net/
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Re: [Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-15 Thread Dieter Maurer
Jim Fulton wrote at 2004-1-15 17:23 -0500:
>BTW, telling me that an algorithm has changed doesn't constitute
>a use case. :) I know that algorithm has changed.  I assert that
>we don't need the feature that the change broke.  I am open
>to evidence to the contrary.

Do you have a convincing reason to change the behaviour?

I argue here with consistency:

  When the "setDefaultAccess" function is called, it should
  always be called with sensible (and consistent) arguments.

  In my view, it is not consistent, that the function
  is called with the attribute name when the attribute is accessed
  via "attribute access syntax" but
  called with "None" when the same attribute it accessed
  via "item access syntax".

  For security checks, the accessed object should be the driving factor
  and not the particular way the access is made.

  When we do not get this consistent, we open new hidden
  security holes (as one must always think: can this
  same object be accessed also in a different way
  and how have I to secure this way).

-- 
Dieter

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Re: [Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-15 Thread Dieter Maurer
Jim Fulton wrote at 2004-1-15 17:23 -0500:
> ...
>None should never be passed for attribute accesses. If it is,
>then there is a bug.  The case of dictionary mapping names to
>whatever is for attribute access.  We are talking about item/key
>access. I haven't seen a use case for needing to specify separate access
>for separate key values.

The original problem report (at least the one I read in
this mailing list) was that a function
registered with "setDefaultAccess" was called with
"None" as "name" argument.

I expect that such a function is not called for dictionary or list access
but only for access to (class) instances.
When it is called, the name is relevant, as usually the name
will be used to distinquish which attributes should be accessible
and which not. 

-- 
Dieter

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Re: [Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-15 Thread Jim Fulton
Dieter Maurer wrote:
Jim Fulton wrote at 2004-1-15 10:03 -0500:

...
Right. The name attribute was intended for attribute-based access.
IMO, it makes no sense to consider key values when doing security
checks.

I will let Jim comment on your use case.
What use case?  I missed it. Where is it?


"AccessControl.SecurityInfo.SecurityInfo.setDefaultAccess"
allows integers, strings, dictionary mapping names to integers
and function with signature "name,value --> boolean" as
arguments.
The motivation is that some attributes may be accessible
while others should not. It is highly likely that
this decision is based on the attribute name.
When "None" is passed as name, you loose...
None should never be passed for attribute accesses. If it is,
then there is a bug.  The case of dictionary mapping names to
whatever is for attribute access.  We are talking about item/key
access. I haven't seen a use case for needing to specify separate access
for separate key values.
BTW, telling me that an algorithm has changed doesn't constitute
a use case. :) I know that algorithm has changed.  I assert that
we don't need the feature that the change broke.  I am open
to evidence to the contrary.
Jim

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[Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-15 Thread Tres Seaver
Dieter Maurer wrote:
Jim Fulton wrote at 2004-1-15 10:03 -0500:

...
Right. The name attribute was intended for attribute-based access.
IMO, it makes no sense to consider key values when doing security
checks.

I will let Jim comment on your use case.
What use case?  I missed it. Where is it?


"AccessControl.SecurityInfo.SecurityInfo.setDefaultAccess"
allows integers, strings, dictionary mapping names to integers
and function with signature "name,value --> boolean" as
arguments.
The motivation is that some attributes may be accessible
while others should not. It is highly likely that
this decision is based on the attribute name.
When "None" is passed as name, you loose...
None is never passed when validating *attribute* access;  it is (now) 
passed when validating *item* access (think sequence as well as mapping 
items).  The rationale was that there were no known cases where item 
access was being discriminated based on the key, and that casually 
passing the key / index around was a source of bugs.

We can look at reverting that, if somebody has a convincing use case 
which requires protecting item access based on the key / index.

Tres.
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Re: [Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-15 Thread Dieter Maurer
Jim Fulton wrote at 2004-1-15 10:03 -0500:
> ...
>Right. The name attribute was intended for attribute-based access.
>
>IMO, it makes no sense to consider key values when doing security
>checks.
>
>> I will let Jim comment on your use case.
>
>What use case?  I missed it. Where is it?

"AccessControl.SecurityInfo.SecurityInfo.setDefaultAccess"
allows integers, strings, dictionary mapping names to integers
and function with signature "name,value --> boolean" as
arguments.

The motivation is that some attributes may be accessible
while others should not. It is highly likely that
this decision is based on the attribute name.
When "None" is passed as name, you loose...

-- 
Dieter

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[Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-15 Thread Jim Fulton
Tres Seaver wrote:
Jim Fulton wrote:

Tres Seaver wrote:

I will let Jim comment on your use case.


What use case?  I missed it. Where is it?


Here is Stuart's original post:

This has the side effect of not passing the name attribute to
my security assertion methods registered via
ClassSecurityInfo.setDefaultAccess:
class Foo(blah, blah, blah):
security = ClassSecurityInfo()
def _checkAccess(self, name, value):
if name.startswith('CG'):
return 1
return 0
security.setDefaultAccess(_checkAccess)
def __getitem__(self, key):
''' Access via dictionary interface, with security
provided via _checkAccess
'''
return 'example'


The old code allowed this example to work, because it passed 'name' when 
validating __getitem__ access.
OK, I can see that the code was using this.  I still don't understand what
the use case is. :)
I'm saying YAGNI to controlling access to mapping items based on keys.
I'd like to hear a convincing argument for why we need to support  this.
Saying that the old implementation did it that way is not convincing
to me.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that I can point to old implementation that
didn't pass the name for item access.
Jim

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[Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-15 Thread Tres Seaver
Jim Fulton wrote:
Tres Seaver wrote:
I will let Jim comment on your use case.


What use case?  I missed it. Where is it?
Here is Stuart's original post:

This has the side effect of not passing the name attribute to
my security assertion methods registered via
ClassSecurityInfo.setDefaultAccess:
class Foo(blah, blah, blah):
security = ClassSecurityInfo()
def _checkAccess(self, name, value):
if name.startswith('CG'):
return 1
return 0
security.setDefaultAccess(_checkAccess)
def __getitem__(self, key):
''' Access via dictionary interface, with security
provided via _checkAccess
'''
return 'example'
The old code allowed this example to work, because it passed 'name' when 
validating __getitem__ access.

Tres.
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[Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-15 Thread Jim Fulton
Tres Seaver wrote:
Stuart Bishop wrote:

On 13/01/2004, at 4:19 PM, Stuart Bishop wrote:

The 'security audit work for the 2.7 branch' commit on 8th Jan made
the following change in PageTemplates/Expression.py:


As well as in other locations such as ZopeGuards.py.

I've opened http://collector.zope.org/Zope/1182 with some
example code.
I have trouble following this issue.  I have no idea what
the point of the attached code is.

Anyone know if None is being passed as the name in some locations?
I don't think it would be helpful for me to go around reversing
code changed by a security audit without some background.


I committed that change, but didn't do the original work.  I did have a 
discussion with Jim which touched on it:  the purpose of the change was 
to make access via '__getitem__' homogenous across all keys / indexes, 
because (as we thought, anyway) there was not any reasonable use case 
for heterogenous access.
Right. The name attribute was intended for attribute-based access.

IMO, it makes no sense to consider key values when doing security
checks.
I will let Jim comment on your use case.
What use case?  I missed it. Where is it?

Jim

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[Zope-dev] Re: Security audit introduced problem in PageTemplates/Expression.py

2004-01-15 Thread Tres Seaver
Stuart Bishop wrote:

On 13/01/2004, at 4:19 PM, Stuart Bishop wrote:

The 'security audit work for the 2.7 branch' commit on 8th Jan made
the following change in PageTemplates/Expression.py:


As well as in other locations such as ZopeGuards.py.

I've opened http://collector.zope.org/Zope/1182 with some
example code.
Anyone know if None is being passed as the name in some locations?
I don't think it would be helpful for me to go around reversing
code changed by a security audit without some background.
I committed that change, but didn't do the original work.  I did have a 
discussion with Jim which touched on it:  the purpose of the change was 
to make access via '__getitem__' homogenous across all keys / indexes, 
because (as we thought, anyway) there was not any reasonable use case 
for heterogenous access.

I will let Jim comment on your use case.

Tres.
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