GHSA-72r2-7mfr-5xr9: Medium severity pip/nltk vulnerability

Summary

There's a logic bug in FileSystemPathPointer.open() inside nltk/data.py that makes the sandbox check permanently inert. The guard condition is always False — meaning any file the process can read is accessible by passing a file:// URL to nltk.data.load().

---

Details

In nltk/data.py, FileSystemPathPointer.open() was patched at some point with a comment saying "SECURITY PATCH ENFORCING SANDBOX", but the check doesn't work: python def open(self, encoding=None): path = os.path.normpath(self.path)

# Block raw absolute reads such as "/" "C:\\Windows" etc. if os.path.isabs(path) and path != os.path.normpath(self.path): raise ValueError(f"Direct absolute file access blocked: {path}")

stream = open(self.path, "rb")

path is set to os.path.normpath(self.path) on line 1, then compared against os.path.normpath(self.path) again in the condition. They are always equal. The ValueError never fires.

On top of that, init already calls os.path.abspath() before storing self.path, so it's normalized before open() is even called. Running normpath on it again changes nothing.

The stream = open(self.path, "rb") line is always reached regardless of what path was passed in.

---

PoC

Tested on Python 3.11, NLTK 3.9.1, Ubuntu 22.04. python import nltk from nltk.data import FileSystemPathPointer

direct construction ptr = FileSystemPathPointer("/etc/passwd") with ptr.open() as f: print(f.read(300))

via load() using file:// URL data = nltk.data.load("file:///etc/passwd", format="raw") print(data[:300])

Both print file contents. No exception is raised.

---

Impact

Any app that lets users influence the string passed to nltk.data.load() or nltk.data.find() is exposed — web APIs, notebook servers, multi-tenant pipelines. An attacker can read any file the process user has access to: /etc/passwd, .env files, private keys, ~/.aws/credentials, etc.

Suggested Fix

File: nltk/data.py — FileSystemPathPointer.open() (lines 378–390)

What's wrong

Line 387 compares normpath(self.path) against itself — always equal, so the ValueError never fires. The check is dead code. init already calls abspath() on construction, so re-running normpath inside open() changes nothing either.

---

Fix

Validate against the actual list of permitted data directories instead: python def open(self, encoding=None): import nltk.data as d allowed = [os.path.abspath(p) for p in d.path if p] if allowed and not any( os.path.commonpath([self.path, r]) == r for r in allowed ): raise ValueError( f"Access outside nltkdata blocked: {self.path!r}" ) stream = open(self.path, "rb") if encoding is not None: stream = SeekableUnicodeStreamReader(stream, encoding) return stream

---

Why commonpath not startswith

startswith is bypassable by a path that shares a prefix: /tmp/nltkdataevil".startswith("/tmp/nltkdata") → True ✗ commonpath(["/tmp/nltkdataevil", "/tmp/nltkdata"]) → "/tmp" ✓

---

Diff diff - path = os.path.normpath(self.path) - if os.path.isabs(path) and path != os.path.normpath(self.path): - raise ValueError(f"Direct absolute file access blocked: {path}") - + import nltk.data as d + allowed = [os.path.abspath(p) for p in d.path if p] + if allowed and not any( + os.path.commonpath([self.path, r]) == r for r in allowed + ): + raise ValueError(f"Access outside nltkdata blocked: {self.path!r}") stream = open(self.path, "rb")