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Comment by explodes | Hacker News Reader

First time I've heard about this. I'll have to look into the security model around it. I'm curious what safeguards are in place to prevent click jacking. I know showing a file picker """should""" be enough of a warning to users to be careful, but it's not hard to imagine a world where a couple of fish accidentally bite the bait of an allow-button, or because they followed instructions they incorrectly trusted.

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Looks like these safeguards are in place:

* System and root directories cannot be selected. * Can only being activated after user action. * Requires https. * Double-confirmation for write access.

No API like this could ever be bulletproof, but it's a start I guess.

Very cool API though, and it really does open up a whole new world of possibilities.

Those are some pretty flimsy safeguards. I don't keep my secrets in system directories and using HTTPS doesn't mean the site isn't malicious.

> I don't keep my secrets in system directories

Root of the home directory is also excluded.

But obviously yeah, nothing's going to prevent you from giving a website access to your .ssh directory if you explicitly select it.

Personally I don't have a problem with that. The ability to upload files has been a thing on the web for forever and I don't think there's ever been anything that stopped users from uploading their private key. Possibly some users have gotten phished that way, but at a certain point you have to accept responsibility for your own actions, otherwise you start ceding control of your life to a corporate nanny state.

> System and root directories cannot be selected.

That desperately needs something like the Public Suffix List [1] - a community-managed list where authors of software can blacklist directories containing sensitive files or such files directly for all browsers implementing this feature.

If I were to design such a list, it would include ~/.ssh, ~/.aws, ~/.config, ~/Library, ~/.{ba,z}sh{rc,_profile,_history}, ~/.m2, ~/.npm, ~/.npmrc, ~/.profile at the very least. Because users will get phished.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Suffix_List

This is still a security nightmare! You won't get every folder, or even enough folders.

Black listing is never secure. White listing is. Sadly some really smart person decided it was a good idea to store pictures and SSH keys within the same directory tree.

> Sadly some really smart person decided it was a good idea to store pictures and SSH keys within the same directory tree.

~/Pictures and ~/.ssh are as far apart as they can be while staying in the user's home directory. I guess you could stick stuff in... /var or something, but that seems worse overall.

If you see a directory for pictures, it means XDG directories are available in your system. Then you can change their location at will, and place them as deep in your user directory as you like. Like in `~/opt/art/visual/picture`.

My Nix Home Manager settings for XDG directories:

    xdg.userDirs = {
      enable = true;
      createDirectories = true;
      desktop = "${config.home.homeDirectory}/var/desktop";
      documents = "${config.home.homeDirectory}/opt/docs";
      download = "${config.home.homeDirectory}/var/download";
      music = "${config.home.homeDirectory}/opt/art/music";
      pictures = "${config.home.homeDirectory}/opt/art/visual/picture";
      publicShare = "${config.home.homeDirectory}/var/public";
      videos = "${config.home.homeDirectory}/opt/art/visual/video";
      templates = "${config.home.homeDirectory}/opt/templates";
    };

This is something you should explain to the Firefox critics.

Chrome and friends (Edge, Opera) are basically the new IE6 and only people who are new or forgetful will disagree. I hate Mozilla for missing up so bad with their stewardship of Firefox time and again, but alas, it is the only reasonable option on the table.

And while I do hate Mozilla, Google is to be disliked even more.

IE6 stagnated after MS won the browser wars. It didn't get an update for like 6 years. Chrome has become a monoculture too but I think it's one of another kind.

IE6 stagnated because that was ideal for Microsoft who was mainly in the business of desktop; Chrome is now eroding user privacy and becoming a rubbish OS because that is ideal for a Google's Ad revenue and web based business. It is the same.

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