I strongly agree that allowing users to post javascript is a reckless oversight that should be remedied as soon as possible. Like all other websites, Perlmonks is subject to the same security issues that affect public sites. You can not trust user input, and can not afford to allow users to acces programming APIs unless you clearly and prominently describe the risk to all users.

That perlmonks allows JS in posts troubles me quite a bit. I am not comfortable being exposed to abuse by a users of a web application, no matter how good the intent is which brought about the exposure.

Exposing perlmonks to cross-site scripting hacking by allowing javascript is a real oversight and it is incomprehensible to me that non-trusted users are allowed to post JS at all.

The sad fact of the matter is that JS is a permanent part of most web browsing experiences.

I would be very much happier if all user-generated JS was reaped from all pages, and JS candy was simply banned.

Don't we routinely lambaste Microsoft for doing similar unfortunate things with their products?

Why is it ok for us to put out features because they are cool without considering the consequences on the general population?

About petrucio's password hash hack... It is not so bad because it only shows the encrypted pwd and can only access cookies related to Perlmonks. With current JS security, I believe that unless you send email messages, you can only talk to the server the page came from. But nevertheless, JS can really mess up pages (through DOM manipulations for example)

I propose that it would be better if scriptign commands were reaped unless held within <code /> tags.

hackmare.
roasp.com