View Single Post
Old 6th July 2018, 15:22   #38  |  Link
MysteryX
Soul Architect
 
MysteryX's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Posts: 2,559
FFMPEG doesn't create any file association. However, in a business environment, the scripts may be running in one environment while production material is being fed from employees on the network. If, for example, the server is designed to automatically batch-process all scripts in a folder, and someone manages to push a script in there, he can run anything he wants on the server. Perhaps the admins don't even know about VapourSynth and just try to read every video file in that folder thinking they are harmless.

There are lots of scenarios where we don't care about security -- but in cases where it's important, we're at a bad start.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ChaosKing View Post
That about bat or exe files? They have the same "power of potential destruction", I don't see why this is suddenly a problem now.
The danger of EXE and BAT files is very well known, and many steps have been taken to limit their damage. Browsers will give you strong warnings, EXE/BAT files are flagged as coming from the Internet and will ask you for confirmation to run them, and anti-viruses will scan them. The danger of Word files was also very well-known, prompting Microsoft to disable macros by default, and give strong warnings before executing any macro.

I'll also note that this isn't an issue in Avisynth.

In .NET, at least, there are sandboxing options where the code can run with limited privilege, which allows for Silverlight that could run within a browser (but then browsers dropped support for Silverlight anyway).

Indeed VapourSynth doesn't create any file association by default -- but I associated them with a program to preview the files, not knowing the risks that go with it. Of course it's not much of a personal issue on my laptop where I'm in control of everything, but in a business network, things aren't so simple.

Just to put things into perspective, FFMPEG is being used by all kinds of corporations. Many of them have batch-processing servers (and aren't even using VapourSynth). Adding native support for VapourSynth in FFMPEG would put all of these batch-processing servers and businesses at risk, as anyone who can push a file into the batch-processing could run anything on the server. The only way around that would be for server admin to explicitly forbid VapourSynth extensions -- essentially disabling FFMPEG's VapourSynth support. It certainly cannot be turned on by default.

Last edited by MysteryX; 6th July 2018 at 15:49.
MysteryX is offline   Reply With Quote