Why does Google append while(1); in front of their JSON responses?

Re:Why does Google append while(1); in front of their JSON r... by apendleton on Monday February 04, 2013 @08:54PM (#5168564)

This method only works for HTTP GETs, and can't get around requirements to present CSRF tokens with the request. This is one of several possible strategies for guarding against CSRF.

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Re:Why does Google append while(1); in front of their JSON r... by ville on Monday February 04, 2013 @09:05PM (#5168595)

Wouldn't also using a custom HTTP header instead of cookies for passing a session identifier prevent this attack? A script tag can not set headers, right?

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Re:Why does Google append while(1); in front of their JSON r... by thezilch on Monday February 04, 2013 @10:25PM (#5168837)

Not quite, thanks to Flash.

http://lists.webappsec.org/pipermail/websecurity_lists.webap...

Rails and Django patches/recommendations on the issue: http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2011/2/8/csrf-protection-bypas... https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.2/releases/1.2.5/#csrf-e...

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Re:Why does Google append while(1); in front of their JSON r... by deliminator on Tuesday February 05, 2013 @01:05AM (#5169421)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but does this not merely allow an attacker to cause the browser to make requests with custom headers? That is, it does not allow the attacker to gain the CSRF token, and if the CSRF token is not known to the attacker, he would still not be able to make API requests.

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