Timeout on whitelist

[zappe]

I would like some kind of timeout on my whitelist, for example that after 6 months from addition the domain would be removed.

Any feature that is planned?

[barbaz]

Please no, please no such feature. I don't want to risk losing my whitelist entries which are supposed to be PERMANENT for a reason.

Why would you need auto-culling of whitelist entries anyway? That indicates you may not be understanding something about how to best use NoScript to protect yourself...

[zappe]

Please no, please no such feature. I don't want to risk losing my whitelist entries which are supposed to be PERMANENT for a reason.

Why would you need auto-culling of whitelist entries anyway? That indicates you may not be understanding something about how to best use NoScript to protect yourself...

Because no site is permanently safe, that could change over time.
So instead of doing a manual review every 6 months I could have it done automatically with such a feature.

[barbaz]

Because no site is permanently safe, that could change over time.

True, but see FAQ 1.11. The only way this becomes a real concern is if a site on your whitelist changes ownership and the new owner intends to scrap the existing content, or a whitelisted site goes down for a while and the domain gets borrowed by a domain parking service.
The smaller your whitelist is in the first place, and the more carefully you choose the sites you do whitelist, the less likely that is to happen.

Your requested feature wouldn't help there, anyway.

So instead of doing a manual review every 6 months I could have it done automatically with such a feature.

Er.. no.
The only way NoScript knows what's safe or not is by the user telling it.
Because every user will have a different idea of what's safe and what's not, it's impossible to do an automatic review.

[Thrawn]

This sounds a bit like the argument for password expiry, and has many of the same problems...yes, if you're quite lucky with the timing, you *might* conceivably avoid an attack by doing this, but you might very easily not, too. And you make more work for yourself. The shorter the time period you choose, the better the chance of foiling the (largely theoretical) attack scenario, but the more work you make for yourself, and the more you become accustomed to automatically whitelisting a site even if you thought you'd done it already, which raises its own concerns, eg Unicode lookalikes.

[zappe]

Because no site is permanently safe, that could change over time.

True, but see FAQ 1.11. The only way this becomes a real concern is if a site on your whitelist changes ownership and the new owner intends to scrap the existing content, or a whitelisted site goes down for a while and the domain gets borrowed by a domain parking service.
The smaller your whitelist is in the first place, and the more carefully you choose the sites you do whitelist, the less likely that is to happen.

Your requested feature wouldn't help there, anyway.

So instead of doing a manual review every 6 months I could have it done automatically with such a feature.

Er.. no.
The only way NoScript knows what's safe or not is by the user telling it.
Because every user will have a different idea of what's safe and what's not, it's impossible to do an automatic review.

You forgot that sites can be hacked. And the longer I use NS the larger my whitelist will be.
There's a reason why lists are reviewed after a certain amount of time.

Who said anything about safe?
By automatically review I mean removing sites from the whitelist after a certain period of time.

[barbaz]

You forgot that sites can be hacked.

Nope, not forgetting that.
https://noscript.net/faq#compromised_trusted

And the longer I use NS the larger my whitelist will be.
There's a reason why lists are reviewed after a certain amount of time.

In this case the only viable kind of review is a manual review. For reasons stated above.

Who said anything about safe?
By automatically review I mean removing sites from the whitelist after a certain period of time.

Gak. Automatically reverse hard work that went into making the whitelist just because it was done a long time ago, regardless of whether the site(s) changed? No, definitely no.

Here's an analogy that might put this in perspective for you: what would you think about automatically resetting any system settings and configurations that were last changed 6 months or more ago because of the risk that some user set setting may have made the OS less secure or less stable? Do you do that on your Mac?

[Thrawn]

Here's an analogy that might put this in perspective for you: what would you think about automatically resetting any system settings and configurations that were last changed 6 months or more ago because of the risk that some user set setting may have made the OS less secure or less stable? Do you do that on your Mac?

How about automatically closing email accounts after a year, regardless of usage, in case they're abandoned and collecting spam?

[zappe]

You forgot that sites can be hacked.

Nope, not forgetting that.
https://noscript.net/faq#compromised_trusted

99,9% based on what?

And the longer I use NS the larger my whitelist will be.
There's a reason why lists are reviewed after a certain amount of time.

In this case the only viable kind of review is a manual review. For reasons stated above.

Not really. For example removing sites that I might not use or visit any more

Who said anything about safe?
By automatically review I mean removing sites from the whitelist after a certain period of time.

Gak. Automatically reverse hard work that went into making the whitelist just because it was done a long time ago, regardless of whether the site(s) changed? No, definitely no.

Here's an analogy that might put this in perspective for you: what would you think about automatically resetting any system settings and configurations that were last changed 6 months or more ago because of the risk that some user set setting may have made the OS less secure or less stable? Do you do that on your Mac?

[/quote]

Maybe no for you. This might come as a surprise for you but not everyone work in the same way as you.

That analogy is just irrelevant. You don't whitelist things in your OS in the same way.

The mail analogy is just ridiculous.

[barbaz]

99,9% based on what?

Based on what actually happens and what is feasible for attackers in the first place. Did you follow the link explaining it?

For example removing sites that I might not use or visit any more

Hmm.. turning NoScript into trackingware which persists browser history beyond the user clearing it? Don't like that either, even though nothing will be sent to any server...

Maybe no for you. This might come as a surprise for you but not everyone work in the same way as you.

No surprise, I work in a pretty unusual way for a lot of things. Think most computer users follow the advice in my signature?

This isn't a matter of "the only logical way to manage a NoScript whitelist is the way barbaz does". Of course there are other ways to manage a whitelist. Let the user do it though, don't have some automated tool doing anything behind the users' backs even on the off chance it coincides with what the user wants. See above for the reasons why that's critical to the security model of NoScript.

That analogy is just irrelevant.

No it's not.

You don't whitelist things in your OS in the same way.

Sure you whitelist things in your OS like that, for example Ubuntu package management has a whitelist of keys that's managed entirely by the user...

The mail analogy is just ridiculous.

No more ridiculous than auto expiring user-set whitelist entries of a security tool...



[EDIT I think I'll leave this thread alone now.]