Websites Can Detect What Chrome Extensions You've Installed

dsinc writes "A Polish security researcher, Krzysztof Kotowicz, makes an worrisome entry in his blog: with a few lines of Javascript, any web site could list the extensions installed in Chrome (and the other browsers of the Chromium family). Proof of concept is provided here. As there are addons which deal with very personal things like pregnancy or religion, the easiness of access to those very private elements of your life is really troubling." Note: the proof of concept works, so don't click that link if the concept bothers you.

Comments

Well, there it is:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another way that IE is better than Chrome.

Re:Well, there it is:

[Centurix]

That IE can't detect what Chome extensions you have installed? I'm sure given time and the history of IE it probably doesn't need an extension to tell if you're pregnant...

Re:Well, there it is:

[beaudjangles]

Panopticlick, I'm sure we're all familiar with this. In summary, sometimes running IE8 or 9 or whatever is the most popular, is the best way to not draw attention to yourself and one of the best ways to blend in. Obviously the full picture is a more complicated than that but it's interesting.

Re:Well, there it is:

[WrongSizeGlass]

I'm sure given time and the history of IE it probably doesn't need an extension to tell if you're pregnant...

An extension is still going to be required to get someone pregnant.

Re:Well, there it is:

[Anonymous Coward]

Some would suggest that if you're using IE you're already screwed

Re:Well, there it is:

[p0p0]

I don't know about you, but my default install is plenty enough to get someone pregnant.
Whether the user experience is as satisfying is another story.

Re:Well, there it is:

[Anonymous Coward]

Some would suggest that if you're using IE you're already screwed

Ahh.. but that type of screwing can't get you pregnant.

Re:Well, there it is:

[youn]

Some would suggest that if you're using IE you're already screwed

Ahh.. but that type of screwing can't get you pregnant.

who knows... imagine a woman is using a period tracking extension and the person is mislead to think she won't get pregnant

Re:Well, there it is:

[hairyfeet]

Cute but this is a REALLY bad thing as if this gets out websites could use this to detect ABP and block content until you allow them to spam you with ads. Personally and considering how many pieces of malware comes from ads a website has to PROVE they are worthy of showing me ads before I allow them. If you wish to be given an ABP exception you should have to have an appeal on your site where you explain what makes your advertising trustworthy, explain what ads are and are not allowed and if you state a good case i'll be happy to add an exception and i'm sure many others will as well.

Lets face it guys, we really wouldn't need extensions like ABP if the ad companies hadn't turned into giant douchebags. can't infect a system with a plain text ad, but the companies wanted more "attention grabbing" ads so we have what we have now where you pretty much HAVE to use an adblocker just to surf the web with your sanity intact. Try spending an hour surfing the web with a browser with ZERO adblocking like QTWeb portable and see just how bad its gotten, its just amazing how much shit they throw up on the screen nowadays. We've ended up in a war with the advertisers who want to snatch your sound and wave their dicks in your face and guys like in TFA showing sites how to make sure you get Gostse'd by the advertisers is SO not good.

Re:Well, there it is:

[grolschie]

... I'm sure given time and the history of IE it probably doesn't need an extension to tell if you're pregnant...

It wouldn't be so hard to detect web searches for recipes where dirt is the primary ingredient. ;-)

Re:Well, there it is:

[sdnoob]

Try spending an hour surfing the web with a browser with ZERO adblocking

i end up on an adblock-free browser for at least that long every week. it's horrible how much crap there is and just how much it slows down your browsing. so many trackers, so many ads, so many beacons & cookies, so many scripts... from so many third-party domains... so much slower, less responsive, harder to navigate, harder to read, plus much less secure and much more invasive.. the internet just fucking sucks without adblock + noscript. i just can't believe so many idiots sit on sites like facebook all day and put up with that shit (when they don't have to)

every time i get stuck on a pc like that i can't wait to get back to the sanity of my own firefox + adblock (+ noscript and a few other essential addons). if i can't browse a site *my way* (no scripts, no flash, no beacons, no ads) i simply go elsewhere, perhaps to a more welcoming competitor's site (and that offending site is never thought of again..)

Re:Well, there it is:

[datavirtue]

Dude, you really have that problem? I only go to slashdot and Google, if something is flushed with ads I just leave.

Re:Well, there it is:

[Anonymous Coward]

Not gonna happen.

I loaded it up in Firefox to see if it would display a "Firefox can't currently have its plugins detected" message or something. The first thing I noticed? That would be the "Scripts Currently Forbidden blah blah blah [Options...]" in the yellow bar at the bottom of my window.

All you have to do is forbid Javascript. They can't detect jack or squat unless you let them. And anything that refuses to display if you don't have JS running isn't worth viewing. No, really. If it won't display on your terms, it's worthless. The point of the web is not to push content to eyeballs, it's for the "eyeballs" to request content that they want to see.

Re:Well, there it is:

[hairyfeet]

Painful isn't it? I swear i have 12mbps cable and when I have to use IE on a customer's PC its like going back to dialup, its just sooooooo slow. As I found out with QTWeb it isn't IE's fault either, its as you say and so damned many third parties being called that just drag the whole thing down. That is why as a service to my customers the first thing I do is install a browser with ABP, first it was FF, now The Dragon, but in either case compared to running without adblock its like a breath of fresh air. I don't really worry about scripts though as I've found that NS tends to me more trouble than its worth, where you have to reload a page a dozen times trying to guess which script will let the content you want work whereas with Comodo SecureDNS built into the browser any nasty scripts get shut down by comodo and between that and ABP killing the ads i'm a happy camper.

Re:Well, there it is:

[bartoku]

What kind of sites are you guys browsing? I have never run an adblocker in my life, I use Firefox, I really have little to no complaints.

Just like SPAM, illicit drugs, and NYSNC, I blame stupid consumers for their creation.
Someone is trying to buy V1agra, snort something, and listen to pop music.
If obnoxious advertisements did not work we would not see them.

Re:Well, there it is:

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, you've never seen one of those banners requesting that you disable ABP? I assume they just detect that you didn't load some image.

Only a partial list

[ThunderBird89]

The proof-of-concept listed only four out of my ten enabled extensions. Among those left out were Google Calendar, UA Spoofer, and Pastebin, among others. I'd say this 'exploit', if we can call it that, has a long way to go...

Re:Only a partial list

[Intropy]

It got one of four for me. And the one it got was adblock which would be very easy to detect.

Re:Only a partial list

[Anonymous Coward]

The way this works is by looking for specific plugins (acessing the manifest.json in the of the extension with the plugin-id). He won't just find every plugin installed, but only the ones he is looking for. On his page he also links to some other site and they have a similar thing working for firefox.

Re:Only a partial list

[fortunato]

Same here. It detected only Adblock, for me, of all my addons.

Re:Only a partial list

[cheater512]

Its not a 'dump every extension' exploit. It has to check for each one specifically based on a list.
Your extensions simply aren't on the list.

Re:Only a partial list

[Giorgio Maone]

Two tiny corrections:

1. He will find all your installed extensions among the ones he's looking for, because every Chrome extension have a manifest.json file. This means that he just needs to crawl https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions for GUIDs of all the installable extensions, and he can detect your full extensions list.
2. There's no such a generic detection method for Firefox extensions. You can detect some (e.g. adblockers) by testing for their specific behavior and effects on web pages (e.g. how some DOM elements have been removed/hidden/inserted), but you can't develop a catch-all detection script, because Firefox extensions are generally undetectable.

Re:Only a partial list

[Anonymous Coward]

It has a list of extensions to check for. The exploit lets you check for the presence of any extension if you know the extension ID.
That's slightly less convenient than just getting a list, but it's not that hard to get a nearly complete list of extension IDs.
I'd say this exploit is about as exploitable as an extension listing exploit is going to get.

Re:Only a partial list

[Anonymous Coward]

The detector works by injecting SCRIPT elements referring to chrome-extension://[id]/manifest.json. It checks if this works for several popular extension ids. Common sense would dictate that it should be impossible to load chrome-extension: resources from http: contexts but I checked in a recent Chromium build and the browser just loads the resource. Chromium must be programmed by interns.

Re:Only a partial list

[pRock85]

I have nothing to hide with respect to my online profile. That is not the point. This county was founded on a private citizen being able to operate in a not hurtful way without being interfered with by the government.

Re:Only a partial list

[Dan541]

It lists zero for me because ScriptNo blocks it.

If I allow scripting it detects LastPass, Ghostery and ScriptNo.

Re:Only a partial list

[Anonymous Coward]

All the extensions contained in the chrome extension hub as recent as his last crawl of the entire website, sure. But no, he will not be able to detect all the extensions because you don't need to install extensions through the extension hub.

Re:Only a partial list

[wvmarle]

AC before you explained how there is actually a dump-all function. The proof-of-concept just doesn't check for all existing plug-ins. Besides, the detection of even a few plug-ins other than via their external behaviour (e.g. not loading ads like ABP does) is bad enough.

Re:Only a partial list

[Anonymous Coward]

I have nothing to hide with respect to my online profile. That is not the point. This county was founded on a private citizen being able to operate in a not hurtful way without being interfered with by the government.

...and then, 9/11 "happened"...

Then it was changed to a country in which there is no such concept as a private citizen of any kind...

Re:Only a partial list

[Anonymous Coward]

He will find all your installed extensions... that use manifest_version 1.

"Resources inside of packages using manifest_version 2 or above are blocked by default, and must be whitelisted for use via this property."

"Consider manifest version 1 deprecated as of Chrome 18. Version 2 is not yet required, but we will, at some point in the not-too-distant future, stop supporting packages using deprecated manifest versions. Extensions, applications, and themes that aren't ready to make the jump to the new manifest version in Chrome 18 can either explicitly specify version 1, or leave the key off entirely."

https://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/trunk/manifest.html#web_accessible_resources

Re:Only a partial list

[realityimpaired]

Ditto. It missed NoHistory and Social Fixer.

Re:Only a partial list

[FireFury03]

The proof-of-concept listed only four out of my ten enabled extensions. Among those left out were Google Calendar, UA Spoofer, and Pastebin, among others. I'd say this 'exploit', if we can call it that, has a long way to go...

That's because you only saw the first part of the exploit.

The full exploit procedure is this:
1. Direct someone at a website that lists a few of their installed extensions.
2. Scan slashdot to find that person moaning about how crap the exploit is and look at the "missed" extensions they list in their comment.
3. Combine the results of (1) and (2) to acquire a complete list of installed extensions for that person.

Re:Only a partial list

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be all of them for a while yet, as Chrome 18 is still in beta, and

Setting manifest_version 2 in Chrome 17 or lower is not recommended. If your extension needs to work in older versions of Chrome, stick with version 1 for the moment. We'll give you ample warning before version 1 stops working.

Re:Only a partial list

[Giorgio Maone]

You might be interested in this: http://noscript.net/misc/scriptno-detector/

Re:Only a partial list

[The Infamous Grimace]

It missed AdBlock but found Ghostery for me.

Re:Only a partial list

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not sure how this was supposed to work. I got a page with a blank box on it. I am just guessing here that the box was supposed to list some information in it. Even when I enabled javascript it didn't show anything. So it didn't detect the No-Script, Ad Block Plus, Better Privacy, and Optimize Google extentions I am running, assuming that is what it was what it was supposed to say in the box.

Re:Only a partial list

[Anonymous Coward]

my version is 19.0.1068.1

so he has an "exploit" of a "vulnerability" that was known and has already been addressed, but is not yet standard. scary. yawn.....

Re:Only a partial list

[Anonymous Coward]

For a start, it is supposed to work for Chrome and not Firefox.

Re:Only a partial list

[SteveFoerster]

Perhaps this was a social engineering trick to get people like you all to publicly list all your extensions. ;-)

Re:Only a partial list

[Anonymous Coward]

Zero for me. The only extension installed is part of the Avast antivirus.

But what is interesting is if you look at the console log. 900+ errors. It looks like this exploit does nothing more than "bruteforce" the browser into revealing what it has. A carefully crafted version of this could explicitly look for adblock or other shitty plugins like it and make it look like the site doesn't work with the extensions enabled.

Note this isn't the only way to break adblock on Chrome, you can have a script delete the css adblock adds, or lock-up processing if an ad script doesn't load, and there are ways of breaking other extensions on Chrome because chrome doesn't sandbox poorly designed extensions.

Re:Only a partial list

[SadButTrue]

I got this:

[*] Detected addon: AdBlock (gighmmpiobklfepjocnamgkkbiglidom)
[*] Detected addon: TinEye Reverse Image Search (haebnnbpedcbhciplfhjjkbafijpncjl)
[*] Detected addon: Scientific Calculator (npoipmeppdioagbkigdlnpmjphnolaog)
[*] Detected addon: Personal Blocklist (by Google) (nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef)
[*] Detected addon: YoWindow Weather (fanogbnclpilemkifpjeglokomebpnef)

It missed Backspace As Back for linux, Kill Flash and Keep my Opt-Outs. Oddly, I don't feel violated. I had always, incorrectly it seems, assumed that a web app could request a list of available plugins.

Re:Only a partial list

[fafaforza]

Don't you realize? The actual exploit is in getting people to comment and list all the extensions that were missed, getting the list from the source.

Re:Only a partial list

[Anonymous Coward]

It only detects a limited subset of extensions. You have to manually select ones to scan for.

This looks like a XSS fail for Chrome... the "exploit" attempts to load the manifest.json file from each extension via a HTML script tag. Chrome should be blocking normal webpages from doing this due to protocol mis-match.

Re:Only a partial list

[Tacvek]

A website can request a list a available NPAPI (i.e. Netscape-style) plugins, however they cannot directly request other browser add-ons like active-x controls, or extensions.

As an aside:
Not being able to enumerate Active-x controls is a very good thing, since that would imply either listing every COM object installed on the system, (which effectively includes a list of all major applications installed on your system), or it would require that IE attempt to load each of them that implements the IObjectSafety interface, since those objects need to be asked if they are safe for initialization and scripting. The latter option would be terribly slow.

Re:Only a partial list

[number11]

On my Comodo Dragon (Chromium), detected ABP, Ghostory, and EditThisCookie. Missed 5 others. I'd say as "proof of concept" it works, presumably the site doesn't test for every conceivable extension.

Re:Only a partial list

[andy16666]

It got one out of five for me, and that one was google translate, (which also would be easy to detect.)

Re:Only a partial list

[Anonymous Coward]

Which also lists nothing for me because I have NotScripts, which also blocks the subject "exploit" and warns me that there are over 850 scripts on that site and it's probably malicious. It's futile to attempt to manually detect everything individually. Not only can it never be completely accurate, more importantly you can't know how accurate it is at any given moment.

Re:Only a partial list

[iiiears]

"Chromium must be programmed by Advertisers." /ftfy

Re:Only a partial list

[Dan541]

Wow, good way to burn the competition.

Re:Only a partial list

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW, the reason Chrome originally allowed this is because it is common for script injected into web pages to want to refer to resources (like images, stylesheets, etc) packaged as part of the extension.

There is no reason this is directly a security issue because the same-origin policy applies to extensions exactly the same way it does to web sites. Additionally, as an extra security measure we restrict extension pages from accessing additional privileges except when they are run in special blessed subprocesses. Extension pages that are run, for example, in iframes within an http page would not be in such a process, so would have no extra privileges.

However, as a defense-in-depth measure we recently decided to allow extension developers to specify a whitelist of resources which are intended to be accessed from the web (web_accessible_resources). Overtime, we will be migrating this from being optional to being required.

Re:Only a partial list

[Tooke]

4. Profit!!

Not comprehensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Only got about half mine. I speculate that it only works for the ones you've installed straight from the store; the other half of mine are modded in various ways and loaded unpacked. Not that this is a great help for non-hackers, but worth noting.

Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[satuon]

This can be used in a much more mundane way - a website can check if you have Adblock installed, and it can refuse to display its content to you then unless you uninstall it.

Re:Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[wmbetts]

Why is that a problem? Its your right to refuse to load content on to your computer and it's their right to refuse to show you their content. Kinda like the old antispam saying "my server my rules."

Re:Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[Anonymous Coward]

And you can't get around it by using Incognito mode. Incognito mode automatically disables every Chrome extension and is how I usually check to see if an extension is misbehaving on a specific site. This Chrome extension revealing method isn't affected by Incognito mode and reveals extensions even when they're all disabled.

You have to go into the Chrome Extensions manager and manually disable each extension if you don't want the website to detect it.

Re:Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[Omnifarious]

The grandparent stated a fact. He or she did not say it was a problem, just that it was true.

Re:Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is that a problem? Its your right to refuse to load content on to your computer and it's their right to refuse to show you their content. Kinda like the old antispam saying "my server my rules."

And its your right to make it hard to see whether you're blocking and it's their right to make their ads hard to block. So if you want to see the content without the ads then it's a problem for you if you can't, just as if they don't want you to see the ads without the content then it's a problem for them if you can.

The fact that someone has a right to do something is pretty much completely unrelated to whether their doing it presents a problem. It's my right to buy the last roll of toilet paper in the shop but if you've run out then that can be a problem for you if I do.

Re:Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing about 90% of those adblock-hating sites, is the content they claim to have isn't any better than the stuff you can find on putlocker.

Re:Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[FudRucker]

I block adds by placing "sticky notes" in strategic locations on my monitor, detect that!

Re:Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is already doing this.. if u use ad-block in GMAIL... u can't chat (send part.. receive works)

Re:Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[negge]

I have seen this behavior once on a blog. After loading the page it redirected to another page (aka. not just a pop-over) telling me I need to disable Adblock Plus if I want to read the blog post. Unfortunately I can't seem to find it at the moment.

Re:Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[msobkow]

Clue: They've been doing this without this "exploit."

Personally I don't see why this would be an issue. Doesn't it make sense for a web server to detect the client's plugins, addons, configurations, and to adapt the presentation HTML and XML accordingly?

i.e. How is this any different from detecting Flash? Or Java? Or whether cookies are enabled?

Where is the RISK from knowing what extensions you have installed if they're properly configured?

This reminds me of the panic people have when they first go to a test website that reports on the browser, browser version, OS, IP number, etc. for a client -- all information that is necessary for the web client/browser to function at all. Only the truly security ignorant would panic over this.

Re:Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[Anonymous Coward]

https://adscendmedia.com/gateway_adblock.php

Re:Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a privacy risk. Your individual choice of extensions is another data point that can be used to fingerprint your browser.

Another risk could come from an extension introducing a security hole (shouldn't happen, but if the browser doesn't sandbox them properly...) leading to a greater possibilty of being compromised by a malicious website.

Browser (+version) and OS, shouldn't be necessary if the website and browser both follow standards. Although in the real world often browsers have flaw in their implementations which websites need to work around, which ends up making this information at least useful if not necessary

If an extension is properly configured, then the website shouldn't need to know about it, it is then the user's job to deal with any compatibility problems the extension might cause, but for Flash, Java, cookies, etc. the presence of which might be necessary to determine if certain content can be served to the user.

Personally, I've long given up worrying about being tracked; I don't like it, so I will do what I can to block it, but at the end of the day I know my IP is pretty much unchanging when I'm at home, and maybe my browser can be fingerprinted, and there isn't a whole lot I can do about that, so it is just something I have to live with if I am to use the web, (well I could do more, but it is too much of a pain, and therefore the costs (in time and effort if nothing else) are too high, unless I really needed anonymity.)

Re:Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[alexgieg]

This can be used in a much more mundane way - a website can check if you have Adblock installed, and it can refuse to display its content to you then unless you uninstall it.

True enough, as I remember finding one site, once, years ago, that did this. In fact, it's actually easy to do in JavaScript: search the page for the relevant elements and do something upon not finding them. But it seems the absolute majority of sites out there just don't think it's worth the effort. Adblocking users are such a minority that the cost of implementing anti-adblocking measures, and keeping them updated in the ensuing arms race, is more than the expected return on investment, as adblockers are very poor adclickers anyway. Not bothering is both easier and more profitable.

Any similarity with the argument that piracy is not worth fighting against isn't mere coincidence.

Re:Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, here come the monitors with the built-in eye tracking tech that makes sure it can see the image of the ad reflected in your eyes. Only half kidding here.

Re:Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[Anonymous Coward]

He said "Websites can discriminate against Adblock users" which is written in a pretty negative way. Stop defending him when he's obviously stating it like it is a problem.

Re:Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[julesh]

He said "Websites can discriminate against Adblock users" which is written in a pretty negative way. Stop defending him when he's obviously stating it like it is a problem.

The word "discriminate" has a technical meaning which is simply "behave differently in each of two different cases". You appear to be assuming its common meaning is the one intended, but that was probably not the case.

Re:Websites can discriminate against Adblock users

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you never buy any of the advertised stuff, then after a while they may just block you.

What year is it?

[Frosty Piss]

Wow. Browser sniffing. What year is it?

The hack doesn't work for me.

[Kickasso]

Doesn't list anything, even if I enable Javascript for its site in NotScripts (yet another reason to install this little lifesaver).

Re:This is what happens when you trust Google.

[cheater512]

Erm...how is that related in the slightest?

If they wanted this to happen, it would have been made an awful lot easier to do.

This is amazing

[93 Escort Wagon]

So let me get this straight - I can click on that link right now in Firefox and it's going to tell me what Chrome extensions I have installed? Unbelievable!

Re:This is amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

sadly, your point is going to go over the heads of most ...which is what google is counting on, i guess.

Re:This is amazing

[wvmarle]

Indeed, I just tried the script in Firefox and it worked 100% correct!

It detected no Chrome extensions, which is correct as I don't even have Chrome installed, let alone any of its extensions.

Re:This is amazing

[bytesex]

I tried Chrome the other day for the first time, and I was not impressed. All those things that I'd come to expect from using Firefox in Linux - flash not (immediately) working, websites gratuitously opening new windows in the background, and not a single way to make sure you have a menu or even a 'quit' button - I felt quite unsafe and not-in-control. Every now and then I come into contact with a computing experience the way the rest of the world expects it, and I find it most unpleasant.

Re:This is amazing

[The MAZZTer]

Sorry you don't like Chrome... I think you'll find the popup problem is probably isolated to a handful of shady sites (I have no such problems myself) and closing all windows effectively quits Chrome anyway. Not sure what Flash is about, it worked out of the box for me.

Chrome has a very good sandbox model though, and they do a ton of tricks to try and keep it running fast. There's also a built in JS-whitelist functionality I call "NoScript Lite" which works pretty well. Plus you have nice sandboxed extensions, unlike Firefox where extensions get free run of the browser or even the system. You might want to keep trying Chrome for a bit, it may still grow on you. :) I jumped to Chrome 0.1 from a very slow Firefox 3 and never looked back, even with the massive lack of features at the time.

Re:Didn't get any of mine

[KorrodeAU]

...and I use Chromium, but I don't have any extensions :> (yes yes i realise that's beside the point ;p)

Take Google's good and do away with their bad.

[KorrodeAU]

Guess someone should really post this on the SRWare Iron's forums/mailing list (and other privacy-centered Chromium based browers) so they can disable the functionality in their builds...

Re:Take Google's good and do away with their bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are people still using SRWare Iron?
And trusting it on top of that?

The end is near, folks.

No Javascript -- no problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The only problem for me are those "Web Experience" folks who think they have to make web pages more entertaining.

And don't get me started on that useless enterprise-y software with heavy-handed Javascript dependency (Jira, I'm looking very especially at you).

Re:No Javascript -- no problem

[aix tom]

And don't get me started on that useless enterprise-y software which thinks it needs to be "browser based".

For example: We now run multiple client based software packages for different tasks in our company. They can be configured to interact any way we choose. (for example a document from content management can be opened INSIDE the point of sale software, so that people at the cash register can view documents pertaining to the customer currently in transaction, so that they can for example pull up the letter the customer claimed to have sent last week to your central office.

When about a decade ago "web based" solution started to happen at first we thought "oh, cool, stuff like that will get easier because sooner or later all calls like that can be done via HTTP and URLs. In our own client applications we now use HTTP a lot to request data from other systems in the background. Protocol wise it's a really nice thing.

But putting the *FRONTEND* of an enterprise application into the browser is pretty messed up, since most of the time you need a lot of integration between different system on the user side, and that is pretty much forbidden by the browser security model.

What I think is *really* needed for HTML5 Enterprise "GUIs" to work is a separate HTML/CSS/JavaScript display application for "trusted apps" that can interact freely with everything and a "web browser" for the public Internet. Or some way to tell a browser that THIS signed "application" is allowed to talk to THAT signed "application" even with cross-site scripting.

Rubbish

[Chrisq]

Detected two of my 8 extensions and listed one that I don't have installed.

Re:Rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

It gets only the extensions it is looking for because it must search them by id. Are you sure you don't have that other extension installed?

Re:Rubbish

[Chrisq]

Yes sure, Since it was searching by ID I can understand why it did not get some of my extensions (unusual ones like gpgAuth) , but it also said I was using Website Blocker (Beta), which I am not.

Re:Rubbish

[ElKry]

Which probably means that one of your extensions has an ID collision with Website Blocker (Beta). It would be interesting to find out which one it is.

Isn't this expected behavior?

[Squirmy McPhee]

This "exploit" looks more like begging the question to me. As far as I can remember, every single Chrome extension I have installed warned me that it might share data with the websites I visit before I installed it. It stands to reason that if an extension can share data with a website, that website can detect the extension, does it not?

I'm not saying that it's ideal behavior, only that it seems to me that Chrome users have already been warned about it by Google itself. If you don't like the behavior, you have quite a few options: Remove the extension, disable it, go incognito when you don't want your extensions detected, or simply use another browser come immediately to mind.

Re:Isn't this expected behavior?

[Squirmy McPhee]

If you don't like the behavior, you have quite a few options: Remove the extension, disable it, go incognito when you don't want your extensions detected, or simply use another browser

Hmm ... it seems I may have been a little too quick. When I visit the site running the extension-detection script in icognito mode, it is still able to detect my extensions. Now I wonder if disabling is even effective.

That said, I don't really think there's anything anybody can learn about me from the extensions I have installed -- at least, not anything that I wouldn't tell a total stranger. Since there are few extensions that don't interact with at least one website, I think that's a good policy to follow even if you're a Firefox user.

Re:Isn't this expected behavior?

[truedfx]

No, that's not expected behaviour. Extensions can share information with websites, but if they don't, websites should not be able to get anything.

Re:Isn't this expected behavior?

[Anonymous Coward]

They can fingerprint your browser defying the whole concept of incognito browsing.

Re:Isn't this expected behavior?

[Anonymous Coward]

> That said, I don't really think there's anything anybody can learn about me from the extensions I have installed

Think again. It's a few unique bits of indentifying information. If you have one or two "less popular" extensions enabled, it's not unlike another SuperCookie.

Re:Isn't this expected behavior?

[wisnoskij]

Their has actually been some research in this area. your extensions can often create a unique identifier allowing sites to track you.

Aehm (Re:The hack doesn't work for me.)

[Giorgio Maone]

Ouch: http://noscript.net/misc/notscripts-detector.html

Disclaimer: the original (and only) NoScript can be detected as well, but at least you couldn't be notified by a JavaScript alert() box on a page where JavaScript isn't supposed to run ;)

Re:Aehm (Re:The hack doesn't work for me.)

[Kickasso]

Oh well. Back to the built-in JS blocker, then. Or rather use both built-in blocker and NotScript together.

Re:Aehm (Re:The hack doesn't work for me.)

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't detect my NotScripts. It's exploiting a Chrome behavior in which it doesn't load events for inline scripts. It can easily be solved by disabling JS in Chrome and using NotScript as your sole whitelist source though (which I've done). You could also probably use GreaseMonkey but I haven't looked into it because my solution works fine.

Re:fp MARE

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me! WTF is this?

captcha: tolerate

How am I supposed to know what to tolerate if I can't understand it?

This is only just NOW being figured out?

[Anonymous Coward]

As far back as I can remember, any extension that interacts with the page does so by editing the actual page. Sometimes in specific ways that are unique to certain extensions.

I figured this out, funnily enough, by using *{display:block} on a page that absolutely destroyed it, and for some reason displayed source code of the page to me... (don't ask me why I done that)
And this happens across 2 separate CSS insertion scripts, and versions as far back as last spring I think, webkit just buckles with that statement for some reason.
And during this, I noticed some script and CSS in the page that came from certain extensions.

Here is an example on the No FTL Neutrinos article. Why webkit, whyyy
Admittedly it could a Chrome(ium) error. I'm never installing Safari ever again to find out, holy painful browser, I'd sooner use IE again.

This bug is a feature

[Anonymous Coward]

Google Chrome extensions documentation - Manifest files - web_accessible_resources (linked from TFA):

web_accessible_resources
An array of strings specifying the paths (relative to the package root) of packaged resources that are expected to be usable in the context of a web page.
[...]
Resources inside of packages using manifest_version 2 or above are blocked by default, and must be whitelisted for use via this property.
Resources inside of packages using manifest_version 1 are available by default, but if you do set this property, then it will be treated as a complete list of all whitelisted resources. Resources not listed will be blocked.

The real bug is Google leaving spying backdoors open. Note that by "you" they mean extension developers, not browser users. I don't see why a web site should need access to a browser extension at all. If an extension wants to modify a page, it can just do that without communicating with the website. If an extension wants to communicate with a website, it can inject a script into the page that sends an XMLHttpRequest. Of course DOM changes can also be detected, but in most cases that doesn't allow direct inference of _what_ changed the DOM.

Btw "pregnancy or religion" as the most private things in life? That's new. Usually the safe-for-work example is "you have a terrible but shameful disease and need to access online information about it".

Looking behind the curtain

[codeToDiscovery]

A lot of extensions request access to your browser's X, Y, & Z... and sometimes your entire file system (???) But since we (the user/s) wants to use the provided functionality in the extension, we all click "OK". Just from reading those notifications, it is still unclear WHY the extension needs those access permissions, or WHAT the extension might be doing with said access. How can we know/understand more about this process? Where is the source path of the extension & should we just be looking at the source code (assuming dev experience)?

Old News

[wisnoskij]

/. has at least one article, last year I think, that mentioned this fact already.

This is not a secret and a moderately well known fact.

Re:Europe could use these devises to censor

[Anonymous Coward]

what the...I don't even...

Chrome Google vs. Privacy

[markdavis]

People who use typically choose Chrome (the Google Browser) don't strike me as people who are all THAT concerned about their privacy. It might be a nice browser, but it is closed-source, and heavy into the "Google way" (which to me means to share all your information with Google).

At least with Chromium, people can see what is going on inside...

Re:Chrome Google vs. Privacy

[MidGe]

Chromium has bizarre behavior as well.

With everything that could even be remotely related to Google turned off and cleared in chromium, the browser connects to Google Plus of its own volition, opening a port in the ephemeral group of ports and keeping the connection alive! It is doing this with no activity whatsoever following invocation of the program with a blank home page. What is worse, and by all appearances could be construed as intentionally surrepticious behaviour and perhaps malevolent, it does this only after a certain amount of time has elapsed following the start of the program, and again, with no further activity on my part, simply having the browser opened on the page that says "For quick access, place your bookmarks here...", with hands off the computer and nothing else running on the workstation.

Re:Chrome Google vs. Privacy

[markdavis]

Somebody should mod your posting +1 Informative.

I try to tell people stuff like this, but it seems either nobody believes me, or nobody cares. It seems this is the world we live in now regarding privacy issues- ignorance, denial, or apathy.

Re:Chrome Google vs. Privacy

[MidGe]

Indeed, I have tried submitting a post here on slashdot and have posted elsewhere including on chromium site.

It seems that there is little interest in security and privacy.

It is however a great concern of mine. I guess I go against the grain. :) I posted on this thread knowing that it was only remotely related to the topic in the hope that someone would see it and that it would not affect my karma.

Re:This is what happens when you trust Google.

[Goaway]

And that's why they already updated the plugin system to avoid this exploit, then, is it?

Chromium, detected 1 of 1 extensions

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yeah it knows I run vimium. I'd like an extension that could hide the address bar or at least the tab bar. Using tiling here... sigh.

I'm willing to use other browsers though, at this point I prefer webkit, but I must have vim keys.

I use privoxy to handle all the ads and crap.

I've tried out uzbl, conkeror, but hmm... Suggestions (preferably in the debian repos?) Also something that supports whitelists, I'm kind of annoyed that I need javascript on every site to use vimium...

It Doesn't See My Extensions

[Zamphatta]

I think somebody jumped the gun here, 'cause I'm using Chrome 17.0.963.79 on Ubuntu 11.10, and that "proof of concept" link didn't list any of my extensions.

Re:It Doesn't See My Extensions

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using 18.0.1025.45 and it found adblock.

Re:It Doesn't See My Extensions

[Anonymous Coward]

"Proof of concept" says it all. It is meant to demonstrate a situation. It is not meant to work in all cases. You should learn a bit about the exploit (by reading TFA, for example!) before commenting.

Re:It Doesn't See My Extensions

[Zamphatta]

Are you running Chrome on Ubuntu? People I know using Windows, had the page show a list of some of their extensions. Me & another Ubuntu user, didn't have the security issue. So I'm thinking there's something in the Windows part of Chrome's code, that allows for the breach. Although, I do realize it could be that the site wasn't lookin' for our specific extensions... I do have the delicious extension and I think that's a popular enough one for the site to check for it's existence.

All Browsers Allow Access

[Anonymous Coward]

You can do this with Firefox as well. Internet Explorer does not enumerate plugins but you can do the same thing, and even turn other PLUGINS off. For IE, you have to install a plugin, to get access to the plugin list. I have done it.

Re:All Browsers Allow Access

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox only allows access to addons which are specifically marked as accessible from the chrome:// URI scheme. Any extension which wants to be incognito can simply disallow access to its chrome and it will be undetectable.

E.g.:
chrome://adblockplus/skin/abp-icon-big.png

One more reason to use NotScript :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Good find on the part of the researcher...one more reason to use NotScript :). I went to the Proof of Concept and it didn't show anything. I looked at NotScript to see the blocked scripts and there was a long list of names that I would never allow on any Web site (I never allow anything if I don't know what it is). At the bottom it warned me that this was probably a malicious site (it apparently made that determination based on the high number of scripts it was trying to load).

Note that I have no affiliation with NotScript. I just highly recommend it for Chrome users, or NoScript if you're using Firefox.

Proof of Concept only kinda works

[hamalnamal]

It only detected half of the plugins I have installed.....

What if you block Javascript?

[gelfling]

Since that's my first and foremost extension for everything at all times.

The good news

[JimmerSD]

The proof of concept proves that you are okay if you have disabled JavaScript by default.

Re:Hey everybody...

[Anonymous Coward]

APK is polish. Your argument is invalid.

Another PoC of this

[JackyBrown]

huh!
Last 3 months I developed my tiny web-coding sandboxie, and it was my first work:

http://www.browserleaks.com/chrome

Same idea, but it more visual demo, cos it uses apps icons detection.
By some reason I didn't try to use manifest, and write huge parser to collect 10k db... :)