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frankdejonge | 5 months ago

Resolving by hash is a half solution at best. Not having automated dependency upgrades also has severe security downsides. Apart from that, lock files basically already do what you describe, they contain the hashes and the resolution is based off the name while the hash ensures for the integrity of the resolved package. The problem is upgrade automation and supply chain scanning. The biggest issue there is that scanning is not done where the vulnerability is introduced because there is no money for it.

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__MatrixMan__|5 months ago

Do you suppose that automated dependency upgrades are less likely to introduce malicious code than to remove it? They're about compliance, not security. If I can get you to use malicious code in the first place I can also trick you into upgrading from safe code to the vulnerable code in the name of "security".

As for lock files, they prevent skulduggery after the maintainer has said "yeah, I trust this thing and my users should too" but the attacks we're seeing is upstream of that point because maintainers are auto-trusting things based on their name+version pair, not based on their contents.

debazel|5 months ago

> If I can get you to use malicious code in the first place I can also trick you into upgrading from safe code to the vulnerable code in the name of "security".

Isn't the whole point that malicious actors usually only have a very short window where they can actually get you to install anything, before shut out again? That's the whole point of having a delay in the package-manager.