Cloudflare's recent blog regarding polyfill shows that Cloudflare never authorized Polyfill to use their name in their product (blog.cloudflare.com)
from kryllic@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.ml on 27 Jun 2024 13:30
https://programming.dev/post/16106780

cross-posted from: programming.dev/post/16106778

Contrary to what is stated on the polyfill.io website, Cloudflare has never recommended the polyfill.io service or authorized their use of Cloudflare’s name on their website. We have asked them to remove the false statement, and they have, so far, ignored our requests. This is yet another warning sign that they cannot be trusted.

#technology

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avidamoeba@lemmy.ca on 27 Jun 2024 14:39 next collapse

Nice. Unfortunately this won’t tackle the mountains of sites that use bundlers.

valaramech@fedia.io on 27 Jun 2024 14:55 collapse

Direct linking via a specific CDN was the problem. This is solved by bundlers, not caused by it.

The polyfill.js is a popular open source library to support older browsers. 100K+ sites embed it using the cdn.polyfill.io domain. ... However, in February this year, a Chinese company bought the domain and the Github account. Since then, this domain was caught injecting malware on mobile devices via any site that embeds cdn.polyfill.io.

avidamoeba@lemmy.ca on 27 Jun 2024 15:06 collapse

I read the story and specifically the bit about the Github account. Isn’t this the Polyfill lib’s Github account? Because if that’s the case, how would a bundler solve the issue? The new owners could modify the original source, then the CICD jobs would happily publish that to registries and from there down into the bundles. Is it a different Github account they’re talking about?

i_am_not_a_robot@discuss.tchncs.de on 27 Jun 2024 21:31 collapse

Code pulled from GitHub or NPM can be audited and it behaves consistently after it has been copied. If the code has a high reputation and gets incorporated into bundles, the code in the bundles doesn’t change. If the project becomes malicious, only recently created bundles are affected. This code is pulled from polyfill.io every time somebody visits the page and recently polyfill.io has been hijacked to sometimes send malicious code instead. Websites that have been up for years can be affected by this.

avidamoeba@lemmy.ca on 27 Jun 2024 21:43 collapse

Perfect. This is consistent with what I was thinking and that Cloudflare’s changes won’t fix any recent bundles that might include malicious code.

i_am_not_a_robot@discuss.tchncs.de on 28 Jun 2024 12:30 collapse

Built bundles are not affected. The service is supposed to figure out which polyfills are required by a particular browser and serve different scripts. Because it’s serving different scripts, the scripts cannot be bundled or secured using SRI. That would defeat the purpose of the service.

Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world on 27 Jun 2024 15:19 next collapse

Whenever I see those “All the companies that use us” banner, I shrug.

If I was a scammer, why wouldn’t I include a dozen companies?

Moonrise2473@feddit.it on 28 Jun 2024 08:21 collapse

It’s always a danger when a malicious company purchases a famous open source project.

Like that israeli adware company that bought simple mobile tools

pineapplelover@lemm.ee on 28 Jun 2024 08:37 collapse

Reminds me, I should donate to Fossify

Moonrise2473@feddit.it on 28 Jun 2024 12:24 collapse

I donated to the Tibor guy and I feel betrayed for how he managed the situation

Cube6392@beehaw.org on 28 Jun 2024 12:42 collapse

I feel for the guy. Had health issues and needed money fast. I kinda don’t blame him. Like I get its disappointing and I also won’t blame people being mad at him, but I’m more mad at the overall system of how things get funding

Moonrise2473@feddit.it on 28 Jun 2024 13:59 collapse

I’d also have accepted the money if I were him but at least I would have wrote a blog post explaining the situation, that now the apps are dead and controlled by a bad actor and need to get uninstalled as soon as possible.

Not almost denying it while continuing to get money on his Patreon from unaware users