Just wanted to say a huge thankyou for being so patient in the forum; it's quite annoying that the comment section is a more a function of the title + personal opinions than a function of the blog content.
I love using obsidian, and thanks so much for all the work that you and the team have put in :)
For what it's worth - and I know I'm being very critical of the plugin security model here - I also think Obsidian is very good, and am a paying customer.
Part of my frustration with this is that I've seen hobbyist video games with a more robust plugin security model than Obsidian's plugins. It's possible to do better than just "yolo, eval(github)", and I feel like it would thoroughly improve Obsidian for me, and apparently many others (judging by all these comments), if Obsidian invested in creating a secure plugin ecosystem rather than putting lipstick on the existing yolo plugin vortex.
Just because Obsidian is in JS, and JS has a terrible culture around package security, doesn't mean Obsidian needs to inherit and propagate that culture.
As I wrote, yes, a permission system is planned. But 1. we cannot oversimplify the problem of getting from here to there, 2. permissions are not a panacea. If you look at the scorecards for a few plugins you'll immediately see issues that a permission system wouldn't catch.
Millions of people depend on thousands of Obsidian plugins. We cannot just flip a switch and break everyone's workflows overnight. It will be a gradual process. We're working on it, and I hope you'll at least concede that this is better than nothing.
No, I don't agree. Asking plugins to pinky-promise which resources they will and will not use is absolutely meaningless from a security perspective. If anything, it engenders a false sense of security in end users, and continues a pattern whereby Obsidian tacitly endorses things that are inherently risky.
The fundamental issue here is that the current plugin model is intrinsically broken, and tinkering around the edges is just a diversion of efforts from clearing that tech debt. It doesn't need to happen overnight, but it does need to happen.
The meaningful improvement here is the promise of sandboxed plugins in the future, assuming I understood correctly, and that's just a fairly vague promise at this stage. I absolutely and in full earnestness wish you guys the best with that one. It will meaningfully improve Obsidian and make it easier to recommend to others.
Just wanted to say a huge thankyou for being so patient in the forum; it's quite annoying that the comment section is a more a function of the title + personal opinions than a function of the blog content.
I love using obsidian, and thanks so much for all the work that you and the team have put in :)
Thank you! It means a lot <3
For what it's worth - and I know I'm being very critical of the plugin security model here - I also think Obsidian is very good, and am a paying customer.
Part of my frustration with this is that I've seen hobbyist video games with a more robust plugin security model than Obsidian's plugins. It's possible to do better than just "yolo, eval(github)", and I feel like it would thoroughly improve Obsidian for me, and apparently many others (judging by all these comments), if Obsidian invested in creating a secure plugin ecosystem rather than putting lipstick on the existing yolo plugin vortex.
Just because Obsidian is in JS, and JS has a terrible culture around package security, doesn't mean Obsidian needs to inherit and propagate that culture.
I have indeed read the blog post. Can you point out which part of my post is inaccurate? It is certainly possible I misunderstood something.
Surely you're not about to claim that asking plugins to "disclose" what resources they use is in any way comparable to sandboxing and permissions.
As I wrote, yes, a permission system is planned. But 1. we cannot oversimplify the problem of getting from here to there, 2. permissions are not a panacea. If you look at the scorecards for a few plugins you'll immediately see issues that a permission system wouldn't catch.
Millions of people depend on thousands of Obsidian plugins. We cannot just flip a switch and break everyone's workflows overnight. It will be a gradual process. We're working on it, and I hope you'll at least concede that this is better than nothing.
No, I don't agree. Asking plugins to pinky-promise which resources they will and will not use is absolutely meaningless from a security perspective. If anything, it engenders a false sense of security in end users, and continues a pattern whereby Obsidian tacitly endorses things that are inherently risky.
The fundamental issue here is that the current plugin model is intrinsically broken, and tinkering around the edges is just a diversion of efforts from clearing that tech debt. It doesn't need to happen overnight, but it does need to happen.
The meaningful improvement here is the promise of sandboxed plugins in the future, assuming I understood correctly, and that's just a fairly vague promise at this stage. I absolutely and in full earnestness wish you guys the best with that one. It will meaningfully improve Obsidian and make it easier to recommend to others.
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