270356 - Status bar text can be used for spoofing

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Ervin Németh]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041116 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041116 Firefox/1.0

Mozilla Browser and Firefox have the option to disable pages to update status
bar text. By default this feature is turned off.

But this way users have no clue how a text got to the status bar: is it a
browser message or a message by the page (javascript). This way URLs can be
spoofed by phishing pages.

I see several resolutions:

1. A separate status bar message area for the page and for the browser. This
would be an elegant solution, but it requires space

2. A different color scheme for the two types of messages. This could impair
readability. Howver the location bar has a different color scheme for secure
locations, too.

3. An icon before the message, indicating the origin and/or purpose of the message.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

Dup of bug 83578, but bug 83578 is for Seamonkey.

Comment 2

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 3

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.