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I am developing an open source desktop twitter client. I would like to take advantage on the new xAuth authentication method, however my app is open source which means that if I put the keys directly into the source file, it may be a vulnerability (am I correct? The twitter support guy told me).
On the other hand, putting the key directly into a binary also doesn't make sense. I am writing my application in python, so if I just supply the pyc files, it is one more seconds to get the keys, thanks to the excellent reflection capatibilities of Python. If I create a small .so file with the keys, it is also trivial to obtain the key by looking at the raw binary (keys has fixed length and character set).
What is your opinion? Is it really a secutiry hole to expose the API keys?
Security hole? In broad terms, yes. Realistically though, these aren't nuclear launch codes we're talking about.
About the worst thing that could happen is that someone could take and use your app's keys to do something against Twitter's TOS that will end up getting the keys banned. No user data would be vulnerable since you're not distributing the user tokens (that would be much worse from a security standpoint). Since anyone can register an app in 2 seconds at no cost, the only reason to do that kind of impersonation would be specifically to besmirch the reputation of you or your app.
One thing you could do is leave them out of the source code but make it clear that user's compiling from source need to obtain their own keys and put them in the appropriate place, but leave them in the binary version that you distribute. Not 100% secure, but makes it that little bit harder that will deter a certain number of n'er-do-wells.
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I have a website where I put music, but I do not want anyone downloading it, or it gets harder and just listening online, like YouTube.
Unfortunately, no. It is a bit like trying to prevent someone from recording an on-air broadcast. When you send video data over the internet to someone's player, they can simply store the information being sent to the player unless you obfuscate it and make it so that the player will only work under certain circumstances and will not share the data. This, by definition, is DRM.
What DRM attempts to do is control the reading of the data entirely, so that it can not be copied. This has varying degrees of success and rarely, if ever, works particularly well. It may keep honest people honest, but if you are sending someone data in a way that they can access it, measures to try to stop them from copying it are... difficult. The most advanced systems use special display drivers and encrypt the data right up to the point it is being displayed on the screen (HDCP), that way other software on the computer can't directly pull the information off the frame buffer being prepared for the screen.
There may be some ways you can mildly obfuscate the access to your video, but ultimately, if you send it in the clear, it is trivial for a knowledgeable viewer to store the datastream. If you use DRM, it is substantially harder, but still likely to be able to be worked around by a dedicated attacker.
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I was just thinking of possible ways to go about temporary login systems. I was thinking having a bunch of your standard images with a jumbled up word and users type in the word. I would have a MySQL table where all the photos have a unique id, link and answer-key. that way the webpage just has to choose a random number the GET photo where id = random number. then compare what the user types in to the answer key of the photo.
I'm not currently trying to create this system, it seems very simple and I was just trying to think if it is a secure system that would work.
so my question really is, would there security risks with this, is it robust enough to keep out bots, would my site be destroyed 10 seconds after implementing it.
What you're describing sounds exactly like a CAPTCHA system. These are used widely to prevent bots from issuing automated requests against an interface. The problem is that it's hard to make images that a bot can't just interpret anyway.
Outsmarted: Captcha security not much of a gotcha is an article about some Stanford researchers who developed an image-recognition tool (which is not publicly available) to test captcha implementations:
Decaptcha was able to decode 66 percent of the Captchas used by Visa's Authorize.net payment site, 70 percent of Blizzard Entertainment's Captchas -- the company's games include World of Warcraft and Diablo -- and 25 percent of Wikipedia's. About one-fifth of Digg.com's Captchas and almost that many of CNN.com's were decodable.
The researchers recommended Google's reCAPTCHA as a much more effective system. You can add a reCAPTCHA widget to your own website. This would be safer and easier than trying to develop your own and find it to be too weak.
Short answer: No, it's not secure. If someone really wants to hack your system he can build his own database of image-word.
The key is to invest in security less than it will cost you if your system will be compromise, so I won't invest in a security system too much (it sounds like you don't really have a sensitive information to hide).
BUT, you have an easy & free solution. You can use reCaptcha, not only it's much more secured, you'll help digitize some useful information.
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I am new to IOS development.
I am going to make a Bilingual Dictionary App for IOS. I have two options in front of me for choosing database. SQLlite and MySQL.
If I choose SQLLite then I believe I will have to pack the database with the app. Every user who will use this app the database will be downloaded to his device.
is it a good approach ?
or I should use MySQL ? that stays on the server and app will connect back and forth to get data from it.
Please guide which database should I use for Bilingual Dictionary Mobile app ?
Or If there is anything else I am missing ?
Thanks in advance !!
There are advantages and disadvantages to each, depending on the functionality and user experience you prefer. Unless you plan to update the content frequently, you wouldn't expect it to change constantly, so there isn't an essential need to provide dynamic content. However, hosting the content online can save a lot of space, which for some mobile users may be limited.
However, to me the most important factor to consider is that as a bilingual dictionary, you may have a substantial market of people who are travelling. People who are travelling often don't have data service, and thus must rely on wifi if they want to access this dictionary. As someone who travels with my cellphone, having a dictionary which does not require a data connection is a major functional advantage, and as a designer I would want to provide this functionality, even if just as an option. This may change if you expect that the greater part of your market is not going to use it while travelling.
Agree with Mitch Goshorn's answer. I don't know if you're worrying about the "security" of your database or you just want to save space on device. But I suggest the local one (SQLite). In case that you don't want user to steel your database by hijacking the application folder, you may want to think about encryption. Sorry if this is not considered to be an answer cause I don't have enough reputation to comment.
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In my 4 years of experience,I have developed a lot of web applications. Now, the concept of programmable web getting more and more popular, new APIs are being released almost everyday. I would like to develop a java API/library for a few of these endpoints.Ex stackapps,reddit,digg etc... What I would like to know from you people is ,
How is the API of the regular web
apps differ from the API of these
libraries. Or what is the difference
between these two from design
perspective
What are the best API development
practices.
What are all the factors that I need to consider before designing the API
.
Please comment, if the details are not sufficient.
Stability
If you offer an API to your web app, it is probably because you want other people to build applications using it. If it is not stable they will hate you for forcing them to follow through your frequent changes. If this takes too long, their site might remain non-functional for a long time while they are figuring out the new way of doing things in your API.
Compactness
You want the API to be complete but compact, as in not too much to remember.
Orthogonality
Design it so there is one and only one way to change each property or trigger an action. Actions in an orthogonal API should have minimal (if ever) side effects.
Also, it's not a good practice to remove a feature from a public API once released.
Security and Authentication
Since the API is web-exposed, you will have to authenticate each request and grant appropriate access. Security common sense applies here.
Fast Responses or Break into pieces
I believe in a web environment we should have fast responses and avoid requests that will take too long to complete. If it's unavoidable then it is better to send an ACK and break the task into several pieces and subsequent calls.
From my experience, all good API were not made to solve a generic problem, but to solve a problem for some that requires a certain abstraction. This abstraction is then evolving as the requirement and/or the underlying layer change.
So instead of finding the API that will do it all, I'd start by finding one or two good case problem were your API could help.
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Like, testing for :
invalid inputs (strings containing "'"s)
giving random id's in url parameters to access "unauthorized" pages
prevent sql injection
...
I would recommend reading this brilliant book to learn more about the test plans.
In particular a test plan is much more than a list of techniques like you mentioned (these should most likely go into the details for the security testing)
It should at least contain:
The answers to the main questions:
why bother (what is gained by testing)
who cares (who are we working for)
how much (..testing will be done)
You would not go wrong providing also:
Platforms
Methods (positive testing, load testing etc)
Functionality you're planning to test
Acceptance criteria
And there is plenty more things to talk about in the plan.
Test responses for:
For integers - strings, null, values more than those allowed, negative, zero..
For strings - strings of lengths longer than that allowed
For invalid values, you can check if the response being returned is informative enough.
Test to see that your application logs these errors. If it doesn't you won't be able to identify and debug problems easily when they occur in production.
Also fuzz testing is a must for web applications.
If you want to make a list, you can add "Trying simple javascripts within a textarea field to see if the site saves and executes them"
this is what i use
Quality Test Plan
its very simple, straight-forward. covers many common web flaws (e.g. broken links, etc)
you might think its too basic, but im always surprised how many bugs it reveals
--LM