Semi-automatic update option?

Hi,

Users have been asking for an automatic update mechanism for PasswordSafe, so I've begun thinking on how to implement it:

I've never liked applications that take the liberty of connecting a server without asking me, to check for updates and who knows what else. So here's how I'd go about it for PasswordSafe:

- The Help->About dialog would have a "check for update" button. This button will initiate a connection (described in a minute) IF AND ONLY IF there's no "open" database, that is, there's no sensitive data in the application's memory. My main worry here is that an attacker can do a man-in-the-middle attack and find some kind of exploit (e.g., buffer overflow) to access and download sensitive data.

- The update button will open a hardcoded URL, something like "https://passwordsafe.sf.net/latest.txt" This will have the version information for the latest & greatest, and a URL for downloading it.

- I'm wondering if it's worth adding signature verification capability, so that the downloaded version can be verified as authentic. On one hand, this is easily subverted if the attacker replaces the victim's original version with one that fakes the validity check, on the other hand, if the attacker can do this, then the attacker can already do what he wants with the user's data, so the validity check is the least of his worries...

I'd be very happy to get comments/criticism/suggestions on the above.

	Cheers,

		Rony


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