NUKnightLab / NUKnightLab/juxtapose

Flickr API key

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#139 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
882
Forks
127
Avg merge
1m
Merged PRs (30d)
2

Description

What's the problem?
juxtapose includes its Flickr API key in juxtapose.js making it visible to all users. In spite of this disclosure account security should not be at risk.

However, there are two other issues that might arise:

  1. According to https://www.flickr.com/services/developer/api/ key usage is limited to 3.600 queries per hour. Sharing your personal key across all juxtapose users may lead to exhaustion of your quota resulting in denial of service.
  2. According to https://secure.flickr.com/services/api/misc.api_keys.html commercial use is not allowed. Since juxtapose library is provided under MPL license users or frameworks that in turn allow commercial usage might include juxtapose without knowing this restriction. E.g. the popular JSF library PrimeFaces introduced juxtapose in March 2018, see here: https://github.com/primefaces/primefaces/issues/3251

I would suggest to either remove your Flickr API key and see if it's needed at all. Otherwise I would enable users to specify their own API keys.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start in juxtapose.js and trace where the Flickr API key is defined and used. Determine whether the key is required, then assess the issue's proposed options: removing the shared key or allowing users to provide their own; done means the personal key is no longer shared in a way that can exhaust its quota or impose undisclosed commercial-use restrictions.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript
Domain
security
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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