There were some confusing definitions regarding the valuation of budget
investments.
In the controller, `CommentableActions` was included, which includes the
update action.
In the abilities, a valuator was given permission to update an
investment.
However, the action to update an investment didn't work because there is
no route defined to do so.
The ability was defined so valuators could access the "edit" action,
which will not call the "update" action but the "valuate" action. Since
internally "edit" and "update" use the same permission, it worked.
But then we added permission for regular users to update budget
investments, and these permissions were allowing valuators to update
another user's investment.
After this change, everything seems to work properly since we check
authorization in the controller itself instead of using abilities.
It's possible to have a given order greater than the number of answers;
we don't have any validation rules for that. So the check for the number
of answers isn't enough.
Checking the maximum given order in the answers is safer. Another option
would be to reorder the answers every time we add a new one, but I'm not
sure whether that's the expected behaviour.
Note even after this change the action is not thread-safe, as it is
possible to create two questions with the same given order with two
simultaneous requests.
Using the `_html` suffix in an i18n key is the same as using `html_safe`
on it, which means that translation could potentially be used for XSS
attacks.
Using the `_html` suffix automatically marks texts as HTML safe, so
doing so on sanitized texts is redundant.
Note flash texts are not sanitized the moment they are generated, but
are sanitized when displayed in the view.
Using `<%==` is the same as using `raw`. I'm not sure if we meant
`sanitize` in this case, or it's just a typo. I'm assuming the latter
since we don't use anything similar in any other places.
They do the exact same thing; however `html_safe` might confuse
developers into thinking it will make the HTML safe. Using `raw` makes
it clear that we're inserting the text without escaping it.
The difference is `html_safe` allows every HTML tag, including the
`<script>` tag, while `sanitize` only allows tags which are considered
safe. In this case, we want to allow a `<span>` tag in a translation,
and links inside flash messages.
Sometimes we're interpolating a link inside a translation, and marking
the whole translations as HTML safe.
However, some translations added by admins to the database or through
crowdin are not entirely under our control.
Although AFAIK crowdin checks for potential cross-site scripting
attacks, it's a good practice to sanitize parts of a string potentially
out of our control before marking the string as HTML safe.
There's a slight chance an attribute like an author's name might contain
an attempt to perform XSS attacks. So, instead of marking the whole text
as HTML safe, we can sanitize it.
Also note I'm removing the `_html` suffix in the i18n key, since it's
got the same effect as using `html_safe`.
We were using `Rinku.auto_link` the same way twice. And it makes sense
that the method `sanitize_and_auto_link` first sanitizes the text and
then calls `auto_link_already_sanitized_text`.
The name `safe_html_with_links` was confusing and could make you think
it takes care of making the HTML safe. So I've renamed it in a way that
makes it a bit more intuitive that it expects its input to be already
sanitized.
I've changed `text_with_links` as well so now the two method names
complement each other.
There's a case where we would face a Cross-Site Scripting attack. An
attacker could use the browser's developer tools to add (on their
browser) a `<code>` tag with a `<script>` tag inside in the text of the
draft version. After doing so, commenting on that text would result in
the attacker's JavaScript being executed.
It's possible to create a newsletter or a proposed action with
<script> tags by filling in the body using a textarea instead of a
CKEditor. While we trust our administrators not to do so, it's better to
completely eliminate that possibility.
The name `html_safe` is very confusing, and many developers (including
me a few years ago) think what that method does is convert the HTML
contents to safe content. It's actually quite the opposite: it marks the
string as safe, so the HTML inside it isn't stripped out by Rails.
In some cases we were marking strings as safe because we wanted to add
some HTML. However, it meant the whole string was considered safe, and
not just the contents which were under our control.
In particular, some translations added by admins to the database or
through crowding were marked as safe, when it wasn't necessarily the
case.
Although AFAIK crowdin checks for potential cross-site scripting
attacks, it's a good practice to sanitize parts of a string potentially
out of our control before marking the string as HTML safe.
We use this method in two different scenarios. In an AJAX request, we
don't want to return every booth if the search is blank. However, in a
normal HTTP GET request, we want to return every record when the search
is empty, as we do everywhere else.
It's possible the behaviour of the AJAX call is unusual, since it
searches all booths, and not just the ones assigned to a poll. If we
changed this behaviour, we could simplify the code and remove the
`quick_search` method.
This way we can simplify the way we generate form fields. In some cases,
we also use the human attribute in table headers, which IMHO makes
sense.
I haven't moved all of them: for example, sometimes a label is
different depending on whether it's shown to administrators, valuators,
or users. And I haven't touched the ones related to devise, since I
wasn't sure about possible side effects.
Note I've also removed placeholders when they had the same text as their
labels, since they weren't helpful. On the contrary, the added redundant
text to the form, potentially distracting users.
I'm not sure why it isn't already done by foundation's form builder. It
doesn't make any sense to change an ID of a form field without changing
the `for` attribute of its label.
Using the block syntax to generate the label with a <span> tag inside
isn't necessary after upgrading foundation_rails_helpers. Before the
upgrade, we couldn't do so because the <span> tag was escaped.
We were monkey-patching FoundationRailsHelper::Formbuilder, which made
form customization difficult. We can inherit from it, which is the
standard way of extending what an existing class does, and make our form
the default one.
