Google Developers Create API For Direct USB Access Via Web Pages (softpedia.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Two Google developers have uploaded an unofficial (for now) draft to the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Incubator Community Group (W3C WICG) that describes a method of interconnecting USB-capable devices to Web pages. The API, called WebUSB, allows device manufacturers to provide special "registry and landing pages" where they can host JavaScript SDKs for their USB-capable devices. Site owners can load these SDKs as iframes inside their websites, and allow a site to access and relay commands (via the iframe to the browser's WebUSB API) to the actual device. To protect privacy and security, the WebUSB API also comes with a CORS-like system that prompts users for access to their devices to avoid abuse and Web-based fingerprinting. The system is also backward compatible with devices created before the standard's approval (if it gets approved).

Comments

That doesn't sound like it could ever be abused...

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't sound like it could ever be abused...

Re: That doesn't sound like it could ever be abuse

[Ukab the Great]

It's just JavaScript. What could go wrong?

ActiveX again?

[Imazalil]

Did all the Active X developers end up at Google?

Re: That doesn't sound like it could ever be abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. Now you can plug in a USB drive you found in the parking lot and infect the entire web with Cryptolocker.

This could be the most productive thing to happen to humanity since evolving the ability to make tools.

Re: That doesn't sound like it could ever be abuse

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Assuming the security bugaboos can be worked out,

Okay, I admit- that made me laugh. I mean, how hard could it be to work out all the security bugaboos? I see no problem with this plan, none whatsoever, especially based on the phenomenally secure state of the interweb right now. Why, I can hardly wait to plug some of these goodies into my PC to see what happens!