+1 to CSP as the "right way to do it".

This all sounds very similar to what we ended up doing with the Android
whitelist plugins: Default is (ugh) *, and the strong recommendation is to
use CSP to actually filter requests from the WebView.

On Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 7:24 PM, Shazron <shaz...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Ah I forgot about the legacy whitelist plugin -- we can't remove the
> whitelist totally then, but as you said "default
> the new whitelist plugin to a 'wildcard' network request list until the
> user adds any entries".
>
> That will preserve backwards compat.
>
> On Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 4:18 PM, Treggiari, Leo <leo.treggi...@intel.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I assume this is for the new whitelist plugin as opposed to the legacy
> > whitelist plugin which will continue to use the current <access> tags.
> >
> > Another alternative, but not necessarily better, would be to default
> > the new whitelist plugin to a 'wildcard' network request list until the
> > user adds any entries.  When they add an entry the default wildcard
> > entry is replaced.
> >
> > Leo
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Shazron [mailto:shaz...@gmail.com]
> > Sent: Monday, July 20, 2015 3:45 PM
> > To: dev@cordova.apache.org
> > Subject: Re: [iOS] proposed major whitelist change
> >
> > 1. "If a user is using CSP can we tell them to specify a single '*' entry
> > for the network request whitelist (a.k.a. <access> tags)?"
> > We could. But comes back to my point, why recommend *two* ways, it's just
> > confusing -- especially if we recommend CSP and require an <access>
> > wildcard. What I'm proposing is a permanent, unchangeable access wildcard
> > effectively.
> >
> > 2. "If they are not using CSP,  in spite of our recommendation, do the
> > <access> tags provide an alternative, though inferior solution?"
> > Yes, <access> is definitely inferior.
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 3:36 PM, Treggiari, Leo <leo.treggi...@intel.com
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I'm not certain that this makes sense, but anyway...
> > >
> > > If a user is using CSP can we tell them to specify a single '*' entry
> for
> > > the network request whitelist (a.k.a. <access> tags)?
> > > If they are not using CSP,  in spite of our recommendation, do the
> > > <access> tags provide an alternative, though inferior solution?
> > >
> > > And, is this different for the Android platform which already supports
> > the
> > > new whitelist plugin?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Leo
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Shazron [mailto:shaz...@gmail.com]
> > > Sent: Monday, July 20, 2015 3:24 PM
> > > To: dev@cordova.apache.org
> > > Subject: [iOS] proposed major whitelist change
> > >
> > > https://github.com/apache/cordova-plugin-whitelist
> > >
> > > Previously, the initial implementation for the plugin for iOS didn't
> > > support the <access> tag, but that proved problematic since not
> > supporting
> > > it meant all *native* code network connections were effectively
> > > blacklisted.
> > >
> > > I added the support back in, but this will end up confusing the user
> even
> > > more. Right now we are recommending that the user support CSP, but that
> > > only works in the context of the WebView (whether UIWebView or
> > WKWebView) -
> > > ie xhr, images, etc.
> > >
> > > If the user specified a CSP src for access to a domain in their .html,
> > but
> > > did not specify an <access> tag for that domain, the connection will
> fail
> > > (since the native code whitelist filters all network connections). So
> > this
> > > in effect doubles the number of declarations needed -- a CSP policy
> needs
> > > to have its mirror in the <access> tag. You can see where this can get
> > > confusing.
> > >
> > > We could have a dynamic CSP parser in native code to dynamically
> > "generate"
> > > access tags but that will add on more complexity (but this would be
> best
> > > workaround).
> > >
> > > I propose that we get rid of the native code whitelist (effectively
> > > allowing all connections)  and rely on CSP only. I'm not sure that
> > having a
> > > native code whitelist can really be truly secure, with the dynamic
> nature
> > > of Objective-C this is just a façade anyway.
> > >
> > > In any case, native code whitelisting will only work on UIWebView,
> there
> > is
> > > no way our current whitelisting system will work on WKWebView at all --
> > > more fodder for us to abandon our whitelisting system.
> > >
> > > The whitelisting should really be handled lower level by the system,
> and
> > > indeed this is coming in iOS 9 with Application Transport Security
> (ATS):
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/technotes/App-Transport-Security-Technote/index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40016240
> > >
> > > The ATS whitelisting is through new tags in Info.plist, and we will
> have
> > to
> > > map our existing whitelist tags to ATS when the time comes.
> > >
> >
>

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