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File names should not have tiki

Status
Open
Subject
File names should not have tiki
Version
12.x
13.x
14.x
Category
  • Usability
Feature
Installer (profiles, upgrades and server-related issues)
Resolution status
Fix on the Way
Submitted by
samerafach
Lastmod by
Gary Cunningham-Lee
Rating
(0)
Description

Dear Sir:

This may not sound as a bug, but this could be a problem for people who use tiki to build a professional website.

In an ideal CMS, no one has to know what platform the webmaster is using. Knowing the platform from first sight is considered a huge flaw in the design of the CMS. It's not my position to defend this statement, but you're professional developers, and you understand how this should be the first piece of information any hacker is looking for. Honestly I'd be already surprised if this not clear.

With that said, let's state the problem: The problem is that every php page in tiki has the prefix "tiki-", like "tiki-index.php". Now why?

Let's look at this rationally. Does this benefit the user with anything? Absolutely not. As it looks to me, it's just a show-off of the kind "hey look, this website was made by tiki, and the webmaster couldn't get rid of those urls exposing him".

Trust me, some companies will just refuse to use the whole platform because of this! Usually organizations are paranoid about security.

So please, fix this. Just remove every "tiki-" from every file name. There's not a single good reason to have it done this way.

PS: Renaming the files myself is not considered a solution. Even if it works, an update will mess it up.

Best,
Samer

Solution

This was discussed on the Tiki developers mailing list (http://sourceforge.net/p/tikiwiki/mailman/message/33455315/) and the consensus is:

- It isn't a security problem to use "tiki" in the filenames and URLs because this information isn't actually used to target the site.
- If the appearance of "tiki" in the URLs is a problem for site branding purposes, rewrite rules can be used to remove the term, as is now done for wiki pages, blog posts and so on.
- "Tiki" is perhaps used unnecessarily in the interface text, such as for the "MyTiki" section, and this can and should be changed to something generic and descriptive.
- Changing the file names and paths would make problems for updating existing Tiki sites, and would take a lot of time and effort so wouldn't be worthwhile if the same result can be achieved with URL rewriting.

So the plan is to modify the rewrite rules and instances of "tiki" in the interface text.

Importance
10 high
Easy to solve?
7
Priority
70
Demonstrate Bug on Tiki 19+
Please demonstrate your bug on show2.tiki.org
Demonstrate Bug (older Tiki versions)
Ticket ID
5555
Created
Friday 13 February, 2015 20:40:41 UTC
by samerafach
LastModif
Wednesday 18 February, 2015 14:49:08 UTC


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