formal-desktop-bin

maintainer anizocani · 0 votes · scanned 2026-08-03 00:08:14.047287

MEDIUM

Why flagged This PKGBUILD downloads prebuilt proprietary binaries (Electron-based desktop app) from formalcloud.net/static-assets, which is the vendor's own CDN host for the Formal product. The checksums are pinned with sha256sums, providing integrity verification. The pattern is standard for binary AUR packages (-bin suffix). The host 'static-assets.formalcloud.net' is the official distribution channel for the joinformal.com product, not a personal or unofficial mirror. However, this is still a closed-source, prebuilt binary from a proprietary vendor with no way to audit the binary contents — the sha256 only guarantees the file hasn't changed in transit, not that the binary itself is safe. This is the inherent risk of any -bin proprietary package and is the standard medium-risk classification for such packages in the AUR ecosystem. There is no obfuscation, no unusual execution, no piracy concern, and no evidence of malicious intent — just the normal supply-chain trust concern of executing unauditable vendor binaries.

Triggered rules

MEDIUM source=() URL on a non-standard host source_untrusted_domain

One or more source=() URLs point to a host outside the trusted allowlist (github.com, gitlab.com, codeberg.org, pypi.org, …).

PKGBUILD:14 source_x86_64=("formal-desktop-${pkgver}-x86_64.deb::https://static-assets.formalcloud.net/desktop-app/linux/formal-desktop_${pkgver}_amd64.deb")

MEDIUM AI review llm_review

An AI model (anthropic/claude-4.6-sonnet-20260217) reviewed this and agrees it is MEDIUM (confidence 72%): This PKGBUILD downloads prebuilt proprietary binaries (Electron-based desktop app) from formalcloud.net/static-assets, which is the vendor's own CDN host for the Formal product. The checksums are pinned with sha256sums, providing integrity verification. The pattern is standard for binary AUR packages (-bin suffix). The host 'static-assets.formalcloud.net' is the official distribution channel for the joinformal.com product, not a personal or unofficial mirror. However, this is still a closed-source, prebuilt binary from a proprietary vendor with no way to audit the binary contents — the sha256 only guarantees the file hasn't changed in transit, not that the binary itself is safe. This is the inherent risk of any -bin proprietary package and is the standard medium-risk classification for such packages in the AUR ecosystem. There is no obfuscation, no unusual execution, no piracy concern, and no evidence of malicious intent — just the normal supply-chain trust concern of executing unauditable vendor binaries.

PKGBUILD

1 offending line(s) highlighted

      1# Maintainer: Ani Betts <anais@anaisbetts.org>
    
      2pkgname=formal-desktop-bin
    
      3pkgver=0.5.5
    
      4pkgrel=1
    
      5pkgdesc="The Formal Desktop app for Linux - database access control and security"
    
      6arch=('x86_64' 'aarch64')
    
      7url="https://joinformal.com"
    
      8license=('custom:proprietary')
    
      9depends=('gtk3' 'glibc' 'libayatana-appindicator' 'libsecret' 'libx11')
    
      10provides=('formal-desktop' 'formal')
    
      11conflicts=('formal-desktop')
    
      12options=('!strip')
    
      13
    
      14source_x86_64=("formal-desktop-${pkgver}-x86_64.deb::https://static-assets.formalcloud.net/desktop-app/linux/formal-desktop_${pkgver}_amd64.deb")
    
      15source_aarch64=("formal-desktop-${pkgver}-aarch64.deb::https://static-assets.formalcloud.net/desktop-app/linux/formal-desktop_${pkgver}_arm64.deb")
    
      16
    
      17sha256sums_x86_64=('9a37fa0eed061e87d88f0af64c798ee44edaf5c5b568e71c57ea50b70ad6b37e')
    
      18sha256sums_aarch64=('993c6a41dd0cb8a82ca06bac4feb42da12f66d21590d31a8a944a13b42f0a82c')
    
      19
    
      20package() {
    
      21    cd "${srcdir}"
    
      22
    
      23    # Extract the deb package
    
      24    if [[ "${CARCH}" == "x86_64" ]]; then
    
      25        ar -x "formal-desktop-${pkgver}-x86_64.deb"
    
      26    else
    
      27        ar -x "formal-desktop-${pkgver}-aarch64.deb"
    
      28    fi
    
      29
    
      30    # Extract data archive (could be .tar.gz, .tar.xz, or .tar.zst)
    
      31    if [[ -f data.tar.gz ]]; then
    
      32        tar -xzf data.tar.gz -C "${pkgdir}"
    
      33    elif [[ -f data.tar.xz ]]; then
    
      34        tar -xJf data.tar.xz -C "${pkgdir}"
    
      35    elif [[ -f data.tar.zst ]]; then
    
      36        tar --zstd -xf data.tar.zst -C "${pkgdir}"
    
      37    else
    
      38        # Try to find any data.tar.* file
    
      39        tar -xf data.tar.* -C "${pkgdir}"
    
      40    fi
    
      41}
    
      42

Scan history

Scanned at (UTC)	Severity	Rules
2026-08-03 00:08:14	MEDIUM	2
2026-08-02 00:16:08	MEDIUM	2
2026-08-01 00:11:18	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-31 00:14:10	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-30 00:17:23	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-29 00:25:53	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-28 00:07:28	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-27 00:24:32	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-26 00:07:32	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-25 00:13:44	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-24 00:02:28	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-23 00:14:47	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-22 00:29:32	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-21 00:24:15	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-20 00:19:49	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-19 00:17:08	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-18 00:14:48	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-17 00:06:16	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-16 00:05:41	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-15 00:09:25	MEDIUM	2