[josm-dev] Mandatory login for JOSM wiki

[Sebastian Klein]

Hi Frederik,

Frederik Ramm wrote:
> with so many JOSM configuration details (list of imagery sources, 
> list of map styles, and presets) now in the JOSM trac/wiki instead of
> in (either JOSM's or OSM's) SVN, I suggest that we disallow anonymous
>  editing. There's now too much potential to wreak havoc and we
> wouldn't even know who did it.

Either I don't understand your concerns at all or they are partially
based on misunderstandings. If it is the latter, I would appreciate a
summary of the issues you still see.

> It's completely un-traceable anonymous config changes making their 
> ways onto the hard disks of JOSM users that I object to.
> 
> [...]
> 
> But not requiring login for publishing something to all JOSM users, 
> without them even knowing, is something entirely different.
> 
> [...]
> 
> It's just about making sure that if config changes are made that 
> affect JOSM users, these config changes should not come from 
> anonymous users.
> 
> [...]
> 
> I find it unacceptable that someone can inject any imagery source or 
> preset or map style into *every* JOSM instance without even having to
>  log in.

First of all, if you have a fresh JOSM install, there is no way anyone
can inject anything into it. The worst that can happen is someone puts 
spam entries into one of the lists. I'm not aware, this ever happened, 
but it wouldn't do much harm. You'd only see it in the preference 
dialogue and not somewhere in the main menu.

Each extension (preset, style, plugin, wms url, remote control) is
explicitly activated by the user.

Even if someone is smart enough to create a preset that causes josm to 
crash or execute malicious code, why would he want to attack the handful 
of people that download that preset just in the time frame when the 
change is not noticed by developers or users? Their nifty exploit would 
be useless after it has been spotted once.

Imho there are much more attractive targets like remote control or plugins.

In [3936] I changed plugin descriptions, so the user can spot plugins 
that come from an external source. What else can we do?

Sebastian