Sure, AI tools can do this. However, VS Code is the platform. Why aren't more people worried about running arbitrary VS Code extension that can do the same thing, AI or not?
g947o 1 hours ago [-]
As an VSCode extension author, I am always terrified by the amount of power I have.
It is a shame that the team never prioritized extension permission issues [0] despite their big boss said security is the top priority [1]. All they have is "workspace trust" and various other marginally useful security measures.
I don't install a VSCode extension unless it is either official or well known and audited and I have to use it. I keep most of disabled by default unless I need to use them for a project. (Even if you don't care about security, it's good for VSCode performance. I'll save that story for another day.)
When some minor extension that I have installed on VSCode updates (like parens colorizing and the like) I think what could happend if the author sells it to some bad actor (or decides to push some weird code in an update).
So I started uninstalling some icon themes and less used extensions that I installed on a whim years ago.
I implicitly trust extensions by Google, Microsoft and the like, but the less known published make me nervous.
thedanbob 21 minutes ago [-]
It doesn't even have to be malicious. I used a certain syntax highlighting theme for years, when out of nowhere the author pushed an update that rearranged all the colors. It was extremely disorienting. I forked the extension and reverted the change, so I know that one at least won't change out from under me anymore.
freedomben 2 minutes ago [-]
This is the thing I hate the most about "automatic updates" in general. I've disabled them and gone back to updating manually because the constant unexpected and unwanted UI changes finally broke a part of my soul. Unfortunately that is something that can't be done on the web, where major UI changes can be rolled out right in the middle of a session on you.
mentalgear 1 hours ago [-]
Same thing for browser extensions: a simple browser extension (e.g. web dark mode), can read all your password fields. It's crazy that there are no proper permission scopes in any major browsers ! It would have been so easy to make password / email fields exempt from browser extensions unless they ask for the permission.
tormeh 2 hours ago [-]
The situation is absolutely insane, but it's also productive, but real security would slow everything down a lot. The moment you ask some corporate bureaucrat to put their signature down on a piece of paper saying that such and such dev tool is approved for use, they're going to block everything to avoid the responsibility implied by their approval. I can't really come up with a system that both works and is secure. The only exception is signing up for an integrated environment where Microsoft or Apple provides the OS, compiler, and editor. Oops - Apple doesn't sell servers, so only Microsoft offers this. Hope you like C#.
In theory you can mix and match, but in practice most bureaucrats will insist on single-sourcing.
rapind 1 hours ago [-]
Linux development has a blueprint they could follow. Like the principle of least privilege. These aren’t cutting edge concepts.
Also I’m not sure the tradeoffs of adding security to an editor are that big of a deal. Are we really seeing revolutionary stuff here? Every now and then I check out VS Code only to realize Vim is still 10x better.
not_ai 1 hours ago [-]
At the company I work for they locked down installing extensions through the marketplace. Some are available but most are not and there is a process to get them reviews and approved. You might be able to side load them still but I haven’t cared enough to want to try.
They did the same with Chrome extensions.
larodi 9 minutes ago [-]
I am (am worried) and recently stopped adding extensions by just the random anon. Also I take time to sanitise foreign (to my knowledge) gh repos using Claude code.
2 hours ago [-]
zukzuk 2 hours ago [-]
Yes, exactly. The lack of any sort of permission controls for extensions in VS Code gives me the creeps
ecshafer 10 minutes ago [-]
I don't really get how VSCode got so popular. You can use a language server perfectly easily with Vim, Emacs, Helix, Sublime, etc. You can customize basically everything in those editors, syntax, etc. You can just alias console commands for all of your build tools with some custom scripts if you need more complex build commands routinely. The git terminal tool works better than any VScode option. And VSCode is slower than all of those.
We already have so many good fast secure polygot customizable text editors. Why run one through Chrome and fill it with extensions for everything that will have arbitrary access to everything?
mizuki_akiyama 7 minutes ago [-]
Mostly because installing and setting up VSCode takes one click
ecshafer 1 minutes ago [-]
As opposed to 'sudo apt install vim'? or 'sudo dnf install vim'? Same for emacs. sublime you might need to add a package repository.
bauerd 6 minutes ago [-]
brew install emacs
darepublic 1 hours ago [-]
It's hard for me to fathom that there are capable devs who would pollute their ide with this crap in the first place, malicious or not
jszymborski 42 minutes ago [-]
Between this and the notepad++ thing... I got to start running programmes with firejail or something.
apt-apt-apt-apt 2 hours ago [-]
This seems expected, when you install free, random software, especially from sources known for surveillance/malware/crime.
deafpolygon 59 minutes ago [-]
This is one of the many reasons why I don’t use VS Code, or use any “helpful” AI plugins (or any plugins really).
You all can take vim out of my cold dead hands.
evilduck 27 minutes ago [-]
What's stopping a vim plugin from doing similar data exfiltration? Tons of people blindly install LazyVim, Spacevim, or other vim tooling and choose a bunch of similar things.
bestouff 2 hours ago [-]
Well, AI already sends your code to US so ...
october8140 2 hours ago [-]
Most AI only sends a limited context. These are sending all files it can access as well as all edits.
pcwelder 2 hours ago [-]
> These are sending all files it can access
TBF, Cursor's code indexing works the same way, it has to send all workspace files to their servers.
Auto-completion systems need previous edits to suggest next edits so no surprises their either.
raverbashing 1 hours ago [-]
Yes because there's no difference between a voluntary service with limited context needs and a malicious extension
otabdeveloper4 46 minutes ago [-]
Cursor is a malicious extension though, and nobody seems to care.
14 minutes ago [-]
y-curious 1 hours ago [-]
“I donate money to animal shelters”
“Oh that’s cool, I already donate to my local neo nazi group. We are both philanthropists!”
Nothing makes me go from apolitical to a red blooded American faster than seeing someone make a stupid false equivalency about the US on this forum
Quothling 17 minutes ago [-]
It wasn't China that recently threatened with an invasion of Greenland (I'm Danish). That being said, it's not like you would want your data to go to either countries.
mentalgear 1 hours ago [-]
You did hear about Snowden and the massive NSA data collection ? That was almost 20 years ago, think about what it's like now: they probably use our data to run an elaborate simulation of everyone.
otabdeveloper4 44 minutes ago [-]
Shocking news: not everybody here is from the US.
In fact, many even are from "hostile countries" that are "enemies of democracy".
What's more, some of those people aren't aligned with US interests and aren't willing to put their lives on the line for CIA operations!
DeepSeaTortoise 2 hours ago [-]
I'm honestly surprised this issue in general didn't cause nearly every company to immediately ban all AI.
Why do these companies put so much effort into fighting right to repair to avoid IP leaks any halfway serious company could reverse engineer in a week, but on the other hand encourage their employees to vibe all company secrets into the cloud?
graemep 1 hours ago [-]
> Why do these companies put so much effort into fighting right to repair to avoid IP leak
Only if you believe they are truthful about the reason for fighting right to repair. I think the reason for fighting right to repair is to reduce the time before a replacement purchase is required.
> but on the other hand encourage their employees to vibe all company secrets into the cloud?
Lots of companies do ban or restrict usage of LLMs etc.
embedding-shape 2 hours ago [-]
It's a bit trite, but the answers are: 1) money 2) money
Can't repair your own stuff and either need to use authorized repair shop or buy new? The company gets more money.
Force your developers to forgo quality in efforts to produce more cruft in less time? The company gets more money.
Of course, only considering short-term, long-term they'll lose money, but at that point all the executives and managers already got their bonuses and probably moved on to doing the same in some other company.
direwolf20 2 hours ago [-]
Companies aren't interested in hypotheticals, nobody is paid to care, and most code isn't that valuable anyway.
pixl97 1 hours ago [-]
Most large companies have their CI/CD behind a proxy with an allow list and require internal approval for tools and extensions. So there is that.
wxre 2 hours ago [-]
Uhh a lot of companies did and are strict on what AI tools are allowed.
The main thing I had to wait on for a long time was support for preventing 3rd party code from being plagiarized since our code base was intermingled with partnered companies.
fragmede 2 hours ago [-]
Contracts.
SanjayMehta 50 minutes ago [-]
> Not just what you're actively working on. Every file you glance at. Every character you type. Captured and transmitted.
Even this reads like an AI extension wrote it.
techpulse_x 20 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
cheevly 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
Rendered at 15:23:18 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
It is a shame that the team never prioritized extension permission issues [0] despite their big boss said security is the top priority [1]. All they have is "workspace trust" and various other marginally useful security measures.
I don't install a VSCode extension unless it is either official or well known and audited and I have to use it. I keep most of disabled by default unless I need to use them for a project. (Even if you don't care about security, it's good for VSCode performance. I'll save that story for another day.)
[0] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/52116
[1] https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2024/05/03/prioritizing-sec...
So I started uninstalling some icon themes and less used extensions that I installed on a whim years ago.
I implicitly trust extensions by Google, Microsoft and the like, but the less known published make me nervous.
In theory you can mix and match, but in practice most bureaucrats will insist on single-sourcing.
Also I’m not sure the tradeoffs of adding security to an editor are that big of a deal. Are we really seeing revolutionary stuff here? Every now and then I check out VS Code only to realize Vim is still 10x better.
They did the same with Chrome extensions.
We already have so many good fast secure polygot customizable text editors. Why run one through Chrome and fill it with extensions for everything that will have arbitrary access to everything?
You all can take vim out of my cold dead hands.
TBF, Cursor's code indexing works the same way, it has to send all workspace files to their servers.
Auto-completion systems need previous edits to suggest next edits so no surprises their either.
“Oh that’s cool, I already donate to my local neo nazi group. We are both philanthropists!”
Nothing makes me go from apolitical to a red blooded American faster than seeing someone make a stupid false equivalency about the US on this forum
In fact, many even are from "hostile countries" that are "enemies of democracy".
What's more, some of those people aren't aligned with US interests and aren't willing to put their lives on the line for CIA operations!
Why do these companies put so much effort into fighting right to repair to avoid IP leaks any halfway serious company could reverse engineer in a week, but on the other hand encourage their employees to vibe all company secrets into the cloud?
Only if you believe they are truthful about the reason for fighting right to repair. I think the reason for fighting right to repair is to reduce the time before a replacement purchase is required.
> but on the other hand encourage their employees to vibe all company secrets into the cloud?
Lots of companies do ban or restrict usage of LLMs etc.
Can't repair your own stuff and either need to use authorized repair shop or buy new? The company gets more money.
Force your developers to forgo quality in efforts to produce more cruft in less time? The company gets more money.
Of course, only considering short-term, long-term they'll lose money, but at that point all the executives and managers already got their bonuses and probably moved on to doing the same in some other company.
The main thing I had to wait on for a long time was support for preventing 3rd party code from being plagiarized since our code base was intermingled with partnered companies.
Even this reads like an AI extension wrote it.