I remember an extensive discussion about the purpose MD5 sums serve for the cygwin installer[1] some time ago.
My understanding (synopsis) of the thread (before I gave up reading it in disgust somewhere around Christopher Faylor's suggestion that the subject be dropped :} ) was that md5sum is only used to indicate that a particular package had been completely downloaded (someone correct me if I misunderstood, please). If that is the case, then it seems to me to be a bit quick to declare a server or package compromised based on a mismatch of md5 sums. I do think that instead of simply aborting the install with a message that the server was compromised (was it? or is something else going on?), that a more useful option would be to allow the user to select a different mirror and continue the process. -- William Sutton [1] http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2007-05/threads.html#00314 On Mon, 16 Jul 2007, Louis Kruger wrote: > > > > On Mon, Jul 16, 2007 at 10:30:52AM -0500, Louis Kruger wrote: > > > I also have a complaint: the dialog that notifies the user of the failed > > > MD5 is not well designed. The dialog asks "Do you want to skip the > > > package?" and has a yes and no button. I read it quickly and pressed no > > > before thinking about it, the package went ahead and tried to install. I > > > think there should be a little more effort to restrain the user from > > > performing a dangerous action such as installing a package with a wrong > > > MD5. > > > > Good point. The message should probably be > > > > Do you want to not skip the package (No/Yes)? > > > > cgf > > I realize you are joking, but the wording of the message is beside the > point. For an ordinary end-user, installing a file with a wrong MD5 is > the wrong (and dangerous) thing to do in just about any case I can think > of. Therefore it should not be equally easy to select either option. > > My opinion is that the setup program should abort immediately on > detecting a wrong MD5 with a message that the server may have been > compromised. If there is a special case where someone may actually want > this, it should be something non-obvious, like a -allow-wrong-md5 flag > to the setup program. > > thanks, > Louis > > -- > Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple > Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html > Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html > FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/ > > > -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/
