I never authorized an integration that scans my secrets (github.com)

115 pointsby trvrprkr2 hours ago63 comments

eranation 21 minutes ago

- Should a password manager warn me about reused passwords without sending things out without opt in? yes

- Should a password manager send even one byte of my data to any service, regardless of whether it is for a good intention and mathematically proven to be "safe" without opt in? I'd say no.

- So would any other product out there, be it a smart home manager or a toaster, send any of of my data, hashed or not to any 3rd party without opt in? even if it's just the byte "1" to a page called "donothing.com"? I say hell no.

- Should open source developers who are not Linus Torvalds be a bit nicer on a public issue?

- And should open source users should be less heated because "let us know if you plan to fix this or we will uninstall and fork it" deserves the "go ahead, this is open source, threats don't really help here"

We all can sometimes write a reply at the heat of the moment that we later regret. Frenk definitely realized it after the fact and I respect him owning it, apologizing, and keeping the old messages. He is right it's open source, and he doesn't owe anyone anything, but still, I believe a phoning home of any kind is violating The Principle of Least Astonishment.

frenck an hour ago

Frenck here, I'm the one who replied on that issue.

My replies there were more dismissive than they should have been. My apologies. I've posted a follow-up on the issue.

As it turns out, the check can already be turned off after all:

  ha security options --pwned=false

It has been part of the Supervisor for years and checks app options that are marked as passwords. A recent release fixed the warning that surfaces it, which is why people are noticing it now.

Only the first 5 characters of a SHA-1 hash go to HIBP, and the matching happens locally: https://github.com/home-assistant/supervisor/blob/main/super...

Our documentation should have explained all of this, including how to turn it off. We'll get that updated.

doobiedowner an hour ago

>As it turns out, the check can already be turned off

Problem solved!

>My replies there were more dismissive than they should have been

What about this one?

5kyl4b an hour ago

why lying on your first reply? you mentioned 1Password did the same, in an attempt to make yourself "less guilty", but you failed to realize 1Password doesn't enable that option automatically without consent, and in some cases this option is periodically DISABLED automatically. address this, please, it's pretty embarrassing to lie like this just to cover y'all's ass.

frenck an hour ago

Not a lie, but I was wrong on that one. I'm happy to admit that.

I've used 1Password's Watchtower for so many years that I assumed the breached password check was just part of it. After your reply I looked it up and learned it's actually a setting in their privacy preferences, so my comparison was off.

../Frenck

hypfer an hour ago

From my understanding, they seem to be under a lot of stress/pressure lately.

I'm not exactly sure why, but the stuff that happens tells that story (to me at least).

Barking at frenck on a Friday at 11.30PM like this is probably not the right thing to do.

frenck an hour ago

Hehe not really. I'm also just enjoying my hobby on a Saturday evening honestly :)

But you are right, it is time to head downstairs for a beer with Mrs. Frenck.

../Frenck

tejtm 22 minutes ago

good bye

jrmg 17 minutes ago

People accusing others of lying all the time is a major problem in current societal discourse.

It’s not a lie if the speaker believes it to be true; it’s just a mistake. A lie must have the intention to mislead behind it.

I don’t dispute that there is a lot of, perhaps way more, lying going on, especially in politics now, but let’s not both inflame opinions and cheapen the word ‘lie’ by just using it for non-deliberate falsehoods.

philipwhiuk an hour ago

> Only the first 5 characters of a SHA-1 hash go to HIBP

Some would consider the first five characters being sent over the internet to be 'your secret leaving your system'.

Some would consider phoning home to a remote server to be worrisome. It's home assistant not cloud assistant.

saghm an hour ago

Asking basically the same thing as the sibling replies, but hopefully in a less aggressive way: can you elaborate on what led you to reply like that in the first place? As someone with no horse in the race (I don't use Home Assistant), the first reply you gave genuinely does seem like it was intended in good faith, even if it was not satisfying to the user, and I can understand that angry users are not fun to interact with, but I'm struggling to wrap my head around why your second reply was "This issue is closed as won't fix" without any elaboration about why. The explanation that seems most likely to me is that you were annoyed at the user and decided not to spend any time looking into the issue, which would be unfortunate but maybe understandable if that's what you're apologizing for. Without any explanation about why you quickly dismissed and then suddenly turned around and changed your mind later though, I think you've risked the apology coming across more as damage control than genuine regret.

omega3 an hour ago

> My replies there were more dismissive than they should have been. My apologies.

I’m curious what made you change your mind, perhaps seeing this getting traction on hn?

infinite_spin 41 minutes ago

I do get the sense that you're not malicious, just that maybe you're not seeing this from the standpoint of someone that assigns a higher value to some elements of privacy. In this case, your user base expects a home automation system. They do not expect that system to scan their computer for passwords, regardless of how "safely" the home automation system were to behave.

You might have a heart of gold, and just be having an off day due to reasons, so I hope people cut you some slack, but if I were you I'd update this feature to be opt-in and conspicuous, immediately

janice1999 2 hours ago

Toxic developers turned me off Home Assistant. The same developer is the star of this issue: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326

Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27505277

netsharc an hour ago

Hah, his profile sure has a lot of bullshit about being human and positivity...

fg137 43 minutes ago

Was thinking of setting my own assistant using Home Assistant to replace the Google Home device I got rid of. Looks like I should slow down and take a closer look at this.

As someone whose smart home need is minimal -- I just use it to turn on/off lights with voice -- I'd rather have nothing than support such behavior.

overtone1000 13 minutes ago

Nothing and no one is perfect, but Home Assistant is orders of magnitude better than any other home automation suite. The fact that there's enough transparency for this to be discovered, for this conversation to happen, and for the maintainer to publicly apologize is evidence of that.

hypfer 42 minutes ago

Dude that is

a) five years ago

b) nothing to be ashamed of, honestly

c) dumb drama

This is bad faith. You could reference it in good faith as context, but that is not what you are doing.

jeremyjh 35 minutes ago

I found it helpful and informative.

hypfer 28 minutes ago

Then, respectfully, your judgement is subpar.

You people are mad about the wrong things.

There is nothing in that 5 year old thread that goes beyond standard issue friction between someone who created something and someone who wants to administrate something.

There is stuff to be mad about, but that does not include a dev five years ago telling the memeOS "hey can you maybe please don't do this. I am worries that it will cause more work for me if you do that"

jeremyjh 23 minutes ago

That isn't respectful at all. We don't have to agree with you about this.

I'm not mad about anything, but I wouldn't need your permission to be so.

I've learned from this thread that I don't want to use HA in the future.

hypfer 17 minutes ago

Uh? Yes you don't have to?

Who said that you would have?

someguydave 40 minutes ago

interesting that the crux of the Nix dispute was about how he wanted to self-modify the HA after install, and the crux of the current dispute is how HA should be able to scan your secrets and upload truncated hashes

It's not a good look taken together

jackpepsi 2 hours ago

You may find this unasked for scan humiliating, but we can mathematically prove we're not humiliating you. Any feelings of discomfort or humiliation are therefore invalid and should be set aside.

Edit: I'm sure a greater good argument can be made. I just don't think they are making it in a way that justifies the invasiveness.

Arcuru 19 minutes ago

This feature should be opt-in, but can someone explain how this is a security concern? I don't understand how it would be an actual security risk to share the first 5 digits of the sha256 of my passwords.

eranation 7 minutes ago

I think the main issue is that you don't expect a service to send anything related to your data without letting you know. Even if it's a ping "alive" sent to a server they own.

Imagine if your smart toilet would just send a small anonymized message to a urine sampling analysis service so it can let you you know your cholesterol levels are a bit high, totally anonymous, totally for your benefit. Maybe it's a great feature, but would anyone expect this to happen without consent / opt in?

speerer 5 minutes ago

A rare occasion where the AI response was an improvement on the human-written ones.

interf4ce an hour ago

It sounds like the dev's reason for rejecting the issue is that the issue was opened on the documentation repo rather than the code repo.

On the one hand, it's understandable. No amount of documentation changes will fix the issue.

On the other hand, it's a pretty abrasive response. It wouldn't have taken any more effort to be a little more helpful and direct OP to the right repo: "Sorry, this is the wrong place for this to be addressed. Please bring it up here instead [link]."

mcmcmc an hour ago

If you actually read through, the option to disable the functionality was already present… just not documented. So it seems the documentation repo was the correct place to open it

altairprime an hour ago

(For missing context from this bare link to an issue with no context provided by the submitter — Home Assistant apparently integrated the same Have I Been Pwned safe scanning process that many other password managers have.)

I have a great deal of sympathy for them refusing to engage; decisive software creators are far less palatable to an entitled swarm of disagreement, and that same decisiveness is what makes the best software. Perhaps in U.S. culture, refusal with a smile and a reassurance that “We’re Listening” is something folks feel entitled to, but in other areas of the world, demanding a stranger change their mind once it’s made up earns only mockery or pity. To those cultures, this GitHub is a comedy-farce, and I laughed out loud upon reading it — not because I necessarily agree with the project’s decision, but because I agree culturally with their tone and handling of what some view as blatant immaturity: a final flat refusal, closing the door, and getting back to work.

TavsiE9s 2 hours ago

Tough one. I get the intention but this should've been opt-in.

TZubiri an hour ago

>>please let us know so we can uninstall and fork

>Sorry, these are not statements we can work with. Doing such threats and trying to intimidate it not going to bring you anywhere. If you want to do a

just wanted to add an outsider perspective here, not trying to add wood to the fire

but i don’t think it’s inappropriate or ‘a threat’ to let the dev know the user can stop using the software.

dpark an hour ago

Is it inappropriate? Not really. Is it a threat? Yeah, it really is. “I’m going to stop using your software if you don’t change this” is a threat. “I’m going to fork it and ship a competing product” is a stronger threat.

It was a clear attempt to sway with intimidation. It was done politely but that doesn’t change what it was. (The dev had already closed as won’t fix, too, so they had preemptively answered.)

TZubiri 29 minutes ago

“hey, X is a dealbreaker for me, if this is not fixed please let me know so I can look for someone else”

“how dare you threaten me?”

I understand how one might feel attacked by an ultimatum, but a policy of rejecting ultimatums altogether only has the benefit of keeping pride intact, on the other hand it discourages people in your life from giving you a last chance, from communicating why they are leaving, and for letting them come back if the parting was amicable

best response is to just communicate you are not fixing X and parting ways amicably, no hard feelings. not only is it beneficial for the ultimated party, but it’s fair for the ultimating party, who is absolutely in their own right to rescind their voluntary relationship, in no way is it a threat to communicate that possibility, because a threat implies violence or damage.

dpark 18 minutes ago

An ultimatum is a threat. That’s literally the definition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum

Again, I did not say the threat in this case was inappropriate. It’s totally legitimate to say “this doesn’t work for me; change it or I’m out”. But it is a threat. We should be honest with what we are doing. If nothing else it makes it easier to understand (and predict) a defensive reaction when we understand and acknowledge a threat is being delivered.

TZubiri 3 minutes ago

there’s certainly an ambiguety in the word threat, where the main definition is about violent coercion, but it is sometimes used as a useful metaphoric shorthand.

and it’s very common for the usage to cause conflict, the exchange of “are you threatening me?” “no, i’m just telling you what I’ll do” is very common.

i personally wouldn’t use it as a shorthand when there’s no violence or punitory damage implied, unless I purposefully wanted to escalate things. it’s a word that refers to violence, so it will harsh the vibes instantly

thunderfork an hour ago

So, wait, these are secrets that are already given to h-a, hashed, and just the first five characters of the hash sent up..?

Yeah, I agree with the maintainer, this strikes me as outrage theater over any actual problem, no?

csoghoian an hour ago

Giving the home assistant core developers the benefit of the doubt, I am sure there are good intentions here. But if they are interested in adding new security features, adding support for phishing-resistant multi factor authentication (passkeys) would be much more valuable. Users have been asking for it for some time, and even submitted patches, which were rejected.

balloob an hour ago

This feature has been around for 5 years... https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant.io/blob/cur...

janice1999 an hour ago

That makes it even worse. A leak is still a leak even when you haven't notice it. Personally I use HIBP but I would still be annoyed to learn a system I installed mainly for privacy was sending private data to a third party by default.

flapperdeflip an hour ago

The feature is not the problem.

Rygian an hour ago

I wouldn't be surprised if that integration is outright illegal in EU due to GDPR, thus putting HIBP in trouble for ingesting PII without any legal legitimacy.

And the first reply being "It is not an invasion of privacy" just shows incompetence on privacy topics. It is never a valid answer.

Which is really concerning, for the lead developer of a home automation system that "fights for the fundamental principle of privacy" as per their mission statement.

nicce an hour ago

I am curious thought that how it would be illegal according to GDPR. They are hashed after all, and the same hash is not used for authentication.

Rygian 37 minutes ago

Undoing personal information for a purpose different than the purpose for which it was collected.

Matticus_Rex an hour ago

It's certainly an overstep, but just the hash they're sending wouldn't be PII.

Rygian 28 minutes ago

The hash itself is irrelevant.

The question is what PII does HIBP collect on submission (eg IP address), and with whose consent, and for which purposes?

All that should be explained in excruciating detail in the ticket and in the documentation, to begin with.

deadbunny an hour ago

What PII do you think is being sent to HIBP?

abletonlive an hour ago

Here we have the classic if you want something to happen in the corporate world, make it go viral on the internet. Except, humans will be humans and it played out in open source.

In this case, frenck most certainly backtracked because they realized they were on the front page of HN and did not want the heat.

hypfer 21 minutes ago

To be fair, nabu casa comms kinda leave not many other options than stuff like this happening, as the general strategy they employ could be described with the single word "tarpit".

I'm torn. And sad.

flanz_10 2 hours ago

> If this is all reason for you to uninstall and fork... So be it, it is open source after all.

what a petty answer. "just fork it bro".

flapperdeflip an hour ago

Working on a fork already: Lets spend some tokens! :)

onionisafruit 2 hours ago

I have another tab open where I am about to buy a home assistant green and start a journey of probably-pointless automations. This is giving me pause. Not about sending hashes to haveibeenpwned, but about the response this got on github.

Cameri an hour ago

The dev comes as self-serving. Not what you’d expect to see. Calls it heated when he himself caused it with their tone deaf response… it’s next level.

csnover an hour ago

> The dev comes as self-serving

What, do you not include links to every single one of your social media accounts in every single post you make on GitHub? I think this is a very cool and normal thing, and not a concerning red flag about narcissistic tendencies at all.

deadbunny an hour ago

The same dev doesn't even like others packaging his open source libs.

https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326

jocular an hour ago

Frenck is the worst part of Home Assistant. He shits on so many things with just a hand wave and no attempt at justification.

eur0pa 2 hours ago

Awfully tone deaf responses

l-albertovich 2 hours ago

And that kids is a clear example of how not to interact with people online.

zephyreon 2 hours ago

Yeah not a good look. This is probably the worst way to handle community feedback.

l-albertovich an hour ago

I mean, none of them behaved like an adult.

It's pretty clear that the maintainer should've handled it better but I'd be lying if I said I never felt like telling a petulant user off. The problem is he didn't handle it professionally.

gvfsa an hour ago

Maybe he shouldn’t be accessing people’s passwords. If you start looking into someone’s wallet you can expect an abrasive response.

l-albertovich an hour ago

Well, I didn't check the git history so I can't confirm or deny that he implemented the feature, in any case, if you read the comment about how the passwords are anonymized it sounds pretty reasonable.

Leaving that aside, even if you diagree with it you (the user) are not entitled to anything, especially not entitled to have an attitude.

Just think about it differently, what do you think would happen if you do the same in the real world?

I'm pretty sure in the best case scenario you may be asked to leave and in the worst case scenario you may be "escorted" out of the premises.

A little bit of politeness goes a long way.

ragall an hour ago

The developer's reply was very reasonable and measured. The user, on the other hand, was very rude.