When you run an AppsScript in a Google Spreadsheet, it is run by the ActiveUser i.e the person that is logged in and working with the spreadsheet. In order to run the AppsScript, which edits the spreadsheet, you need Edit permission on that spreadsheet.
Stay with me.
Because you've got Edit permission on the spreadsheet, the container for the AppsScript, you've also got Edit permission on the AppsScript. That means, that you ( the ActiveUser ) can edit the script to say... get a copy of all my Documents ( assignments etc ) and upload them to a homework cheating site over here... and do it from your actual email address. It could send rude messages from you, the ActiveUser.
AAAAAARGHHHHH!
It's a massive security hole.
You could lock down the spreadsheet so that users can't edit the cells, and give them View access, but if you do that, then any menus ( which load the interface that makes changes ) don't load and so you don't get to be able to add data by proxy as it were.
If this route, of selectively locking bits of the file was almost possible, my old method of using a Task Queue that ran once a minute would mean that all the permissions, rather than being about the ActiveUser, would be tied to what's called the EffectiveUser ( the person who wrote the code and started the triggers that calls the code ).
Hang on, even I'm losing it now.
At this point, I thought... hang on... I can put MOST of the code into a standalone script library. In this way the ActiveUser would only be able to edit the code that displays the user interface. Oh. Still not right, because at that point naughty hacker could add anything they want.
And you see there is the problem. In order to do anything with this spreadsheet we're both looking at, you pretty much have to give people access to Read/Write all spreadsheets. Regardless of how innocuous the thing you are trying to do, the ActiveUser will be presented with an authentication dialog that looks like this...
And it says, "Only authorize the script if you truly trust the author".... Truly trust? Truly? Madly? Deeply? I don't even truly trust myself... how can I make a decision on that?
So basically, my dreams of an organisation creating and sharing solutions only work, if by sharing you mean...
You can take a copy of this data for yourself, and run the scripts on what is now your data
... what this doesn't mean is that...
We can work on the same data, using shared code and do anything useful with it.
All I wanted, he sighed wistfully, was to be able to collaboratively fill in a spreadsheet, using a slightly better interface than the formula bar but in order to do that the ActiveUser ( for those still paying attention, that's YOU! ) have to click a dialog that says you truly trust me, with all your data, email, calendars etc.
It's not going to happen is it?
In this case, it would be easily fixable if I could make the Scripts in a spreadsheet have the permission for you to run ( and maybe even read ) them but not to be able edit them. Or maybe I could say that I only want to edit THIS spreadsheet, and not have write access to ALL YOUR SPREADSHEETS!
As ever, permissions come to bite us in the arse. Ouch.
p.s I wonder what the hell Google are thinking with regards to all the AppsScripts/WebApps like these that are appearing in Chrome AppStore, which seem to also have a "truly trust" dialog in them, and none of which I have yet dared to run. Would you?
p.p.s Arthur's "solution" is to write the whole thing as a standalone web app, but, from a philosophical point of view I wanted to create solutions that other people could take and evolve to suit their needs. And also, writing a web app is quite hard.
Written by Unknown
We are one of the initiators of the development of information technology in understanding the need for a solution that is familiar and close to us.
0 comments:
Post a Comment