Support WebUSB API
This API allow you to access USB devices from the browser.
It is a W3C editor's draft: https://wicg.github.io/webusb.

5 comments
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Anonymous commented
Hope you guys are not sleeping on this one -- this is needed tech.
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Lars Knudsen commented
@Lampy, how is this a "huge attack surface"? 1) requires https, 2) requires user to allow access through panel not accessible to the web application, 3) compared to native drivers, WebUSB doesn't give root access to the system, 4) devices/interfaces already claimed by the system can't be accessed
Shipped in Chrome M61
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Lars Knudsen commented
This technology is excellent and a proper security model is in place. It works quite well (now - even though Windows support was tricky - as always) and I don't see the problems that Lampy mention. The potential risks are much lower with this properly implemented than relying on e.g. a closed source driver from an obscure vendor (was the latest scandal about key logging in a driver?)
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Philip Jägenstedt commented
There's now an Intent to Ship for WebUSB in Chromium/Blink:
https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/blink-dev/KuXx_k2KIis/-g-75FScBgAJ -
Lampy commented
Hope Microsoft will never allow this and I definitely hope they have the guts and wisdom to just say BIG NO. This is an EXTREMELY HUGE ATTACK SURFACE!
I have heard that this will not be allowed in financial institutions by default - the risk is just too high.