fix: judge the symbol a user sees, not the bytes a contract returns (closes #260)

A token whose symbol is " ETH " missed KNOWN_SYMBOLS on all three surfaces
while HTML collapsed the padding and painted it as ETH next to the user's
real ETH. isSpoofedSymbol() now normalizes before the lookup: NFKC, then
every character that paints nothing removed wherever it sits, then trimmed,
then uppercased. All three surfaces inherit it unchanged.

The strip is "renders as nothing", spelled as \p{Cf} plus
\p{Default_Ignorable_Code_Point} plus U+007F. The classes are the spelling
and not the rule, which is why U+007F is named on its own: it is a control
rather than a default-ignorable character, so no class reaches it, yet it
measures 32.00px in the repo's pinned e2e Chromium at 16px sans-serif --
exactly a plain ETH -- so it paints nothing and would otherwise be a live
bypass. The remaining C0/C1 controls measure 48.00px, a visible box, and are
left alone; both directions are pinned by tests, and widening the strip to
\p{Cc} fails the visible-controls test.

Covered: ASCII and Unicode whitespace padding, zero-width and other
invisible characters, and compatibility variants such as fullwidth letters.
Knowingly left open, and asserted as open in the suite: confusables that are
distinct letters (Cyrillic capital Ie), bidi reordering, the visible
controls, and interior whitespace, which renders differently and so is not
the confusion.

No symbol in KNOWN_SYMBOLS or the bundled token list contains whitespace or
a non-ASCII character, so nothing legitimate is newly filtered; a test walks
the whole table and asserts it.

The balance list's token-type gate is now case-insensitive. It compared
exactly, so an explorer writing "erc-20" would silently drop a real holding
before any filter ran. Which types are admitted is unchanged.

TODO.md

@@ -45,6 +45,20 @@ undefined identifiers, which is how
 
 # Completed Steps
 
+- 2026-08-12: The known-symbol spoof rule now judges the symbol a user actually
+  sees. `isSpoofedSymbol()` normalizes before the lookup — NFKC, then every
+  character that paints nothing removed (the format and default-ignorable
+  characters, plus U+007F), then trimmed — so `" ETH "`, a no-break space, a
+  zero-width space, a Hangul filler, a variation selector, a DELETE and a
+  fullwidth `ＥＴＨ` are all caught on the balance list, the history and the
+  send selector at once. Confusables that are distinct letters (Cyrillic `Е`),
+  bidi reordering and the visible C0/C1 controls — which measure 48.00px, a box,
+  in the pinned e2e Chromium where an invisible prefix measures 32.00px — stay
+  knowingly open and are asserted as open in the suite. No bundled symbol
+  contains whitespace or a non-ASCII character, so nothing legitimate is newly
+  filtered; the balance list's token-type gate also became case-insensitive,
+  which no longer drops a real holding if an explorer writes `erc-20`
+  ([#260](https://git.eeqj.de/sneak/AutistMask/issues/260)).
 - 2026-08-12: A containerized Firefox end-to-end harness
   (`make test-e2e-firefox`) drives the real popup in a real Firefox with the MV2
   build installed as a temporary add-on. Zero npm dependencies — a WebDriver

src/shared/balances.js

@@ -66,7 +66,12 @@ async function fetchTokenBalances(address, blockscoutUrl, trackedTokens) {
 
         const balances = [];
         for (const item of items) {
-            if (item.token?.type !== "ERC-20") continue;
+            // Case-insensitive: the token type is an explorer's label, not a
+            // protocol value, and an exact comparison silently drops a real
+            // holding if one ever writes "erc-20".  Which types are admitted
+            // is unchanged.
+            const type = String(item.token?.type || "").toUpperCase();
+            if (type !== "ERC-20") continue;
             const decimals = parseInt(item.token.decimals || "18", 10);
             const bal = formatTokenBalance(item.value || "0", decimals);
             if (bal === "0.0") continue;

src/shared/symbolSpoof.js

@@ -13,6 +13,11 @@
 // which has no contract at all, so no contract may bear it and every one
 // that does is a spoof.  "ETH" is the only such entry today; the rule is
 // written so that a second one needs no change here or at any call site.
+//
+// The symbol is attacker-controlled — it is whatever the ERC-20 contract
+// returns — so the lookup is done on a normalized form (issue #260): the
+// question is whether the symbol reaches the user's eye as a known one,
+// since that is what the user acts on.
 
 const { KNOWN_SYMBOLS } = require("./tokenList");
 
@@ -22,6 +27,59 @@ function normalizeAddress(addr) {
     return (addr || "").toLowerCase();
 }
 
+// Fold a symbol onto what a user actually sees, and no further:
+//
+//   NFKC        collapses compatibility variants that render as the ASCII
+//               letters they imitate — fullwidth ETH, styled mathematical
+//               letters — and maps the non-ASCII spaces onto U+0020.
+//   strip       drops what paints nothing: \p{Cf} plus
+//               \p{Default_Ignorable_Code_Point} plus U+007F.  That covers
+//               the format characters (zero-width space, joiner and
+//               non-joiner, word joiner, soft hyphen, byte-order mark, bidi
+//               marks and overrides), the variation selectors, the Hangul
+//               fillers, and DELETE.  Removed everywhere, not merely at the
+//               ends.
+//   trim        removes surrounding whitespace, which HTML collapses:
+//               `" ETH "` is painted next to the user's real ETH as `ETH`.
+//   toUpperCase makes the comparison case-insensitive, as before.
+//
+// The rule is "strip what paints nothing".  The Unicode classes are how
+// that is spelled, not what it means, which is why U+007F is named on its
+// own: it is a control rather than a default-ignorable character, so no
+// class here reaches it, yet it paints nothing all the same.  Measured in
+// the repo's pinned e2e Chromium (16px sans-serif, plain `ETH` = 32.00px,
+// so an invisible prefix leaves 32.00px):
+//
+//   U+007F, U+3164, U+115F, U+FE0F, U+FE00   32.00px — invisible
+//   U+FFA0                                   40.00px — a box
+//   U+1160                                   48.00px — a box
+//   U+0001, U+0085, U+0090                   48.00px — a box
+//
+// U+1160 and U+FFA0 are `Default_Ignorable_Code_Point` members that font
+// fallback nonetheless draws, and they are stripped anyway: erring toward
+// hiding a token that does not look like `ETH` is the harmless direction of
+// the two.  The other controls are left alone for the same reason read the
+// other way — a symbol carrying a visible box does not reach the eye as
+// `ETH`, so filtering it would hide a token the user could not have
+// confused with the native asset.
+//
+// Deliberately not folded, and asserted as open in tests/symbolSpoof.test.js:
+// interior whitespace (`E T H` renders as `E T H`, so folding it would filter
+// a token nobody could confuse with the native asset), confusables that are
+// distinct letters rather than compatibility variants (Cyrillic capital Ie,
+// U+0415; Greek capital Epsilon, U+0395), bidi reordering, which needs the
+// bidi algorithm rather than a character filter, and the visible controls.
+//
+// This decides only how the question is asked.  Nothing here changes what a
+// surface displays; a token still shows the symbol it reports.
+function normalizeSymbol(symbol) {
+    return String(symbol || "")
+        .normalize("NFKC")
+        .replace(/[\p{Cf}\p{Default_Ignorable_Code_Point}\x7F]/gu, "")
+        .trim()
+        .toUpperCase();
+}
+
 // True when a token bearing `symbol` from contract `contractAddress` is
 // impersonating a known symbol.
 //
@@ -31,7 +89,7 @@ function normalizeAddress(addr) {
 function isSpoofedSymbol(symbol, contractAddress) {
     const contract = normalizeAddress(contractAddress);
     if (!contract) return false;
-    const sym = (symbol || "").toUpperCase();
+    const sym = normalizeSymbol(symbol);
     if (!KNOWN_SYMBOLS.has(sym)) return false;
     const legit = KNOWN_SYMBOLS.get(sym);
     if (legit === null) return true;

tests/symbolSpoof.test.js

@@ -124,6 +124,175 @@ describe("the shared rule", () => {
     });
 });
 
+// Issue #260: the symbol is whatever the ERC-20 contract returns, and HTML
+// collapses leading and trailing whitespace, so a token calling itself
+// `" ETH "` reaches the user's eye as `ETH` while missing a raw
+// KNOWN_SYMBOLS lookup.  Normalizing inside the shared rule fixes all three
+// surfaces at once, which is what consolidating the rule bought.
+//
+// Every character under test here is built from its code point rather than
+// pasted in: most of them are invisible, and an invisible character in a
+// test file is unreviewable.
+const cp = (...codes) => String.fromCodePoint(...codes);
+const NBSP = cp(0x00a0); // no-break space
+const FIGURE_SPACE = cp(0x2007);
+const IDEOGRAPHIC_SPACE = cp(0x3000);
+const ZWSP = cp(0x200b); // zero-width space
+const BOM = cp(0xfeff); // zero-width no-break space
+const WORD_JOINER = cp(0x2060);
+const SOFT_HYPHEN = cp(0x00ad);
+const LRM = cp(0x200e); // left-to-right mark
+const RLO = cp(0x202e); // right-to-left override
+const HANGUL_FILLER = cp(0x3164);
+const CHOSEONG_FILLER = cp(0x115f);
+const VS16 = cp(0xfe0f); // variation selector-16
+const VS1 = cp(0xfe00); // variation selector-1
+const NEL = cp(0x0085); // next line, a C1 control
+const DEL = cp(0x007f);
+const FULLWIDTH_ETH = cp(0xff25, 0xff34, 0xff28);
+const FULLWIDTH_USDC = cp(0xff55, 0xff53, 0xff44, 0xff43); // lowercase
+const CYRILLIC_CAPITAL_IE = cp(0x0415);
+
+describe("the shared rule: symbols that render as a known symbol", () => {
+    test("ASCII padding does not buy a pass", () => {
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol(" ETH ", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(true);
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol("\tETH\n", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(true);
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol("  usdc  ", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(true);
+    });
+
+    test("non-breaking and other Unicode spaces do not either", () => {
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol(NBSP + "ETH" + NBSP, FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(
+            true,
+        );
+        expect(
+            isSpoofedSymbol(
+                FIGURE_SPACE + "ETH" + IDEOGRAPHIC_SPACE,
+                FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT,
+            ),
+        ).toBe(true);
+    });
+
+    // These render as nothing at all, in any position, so they are removed
+    // wherever they sit rather than only at the ends.
+    test("zero-width characters are stripped wherever they sit", () => {
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol("E" + ZWSP + "TH", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(
+            true,
+        );
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol(BOM + "ETH", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(true);
+        expect(
+            isSpoofedSymbol("ET" + WORD_JOINER + "H", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT),
+        ).toBe(true);
+        expect(
+            isSpoofedSymbol("E" + SOFT_HYPHEN + "TH", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT),
+        ).toBe(true);
+    });
+
+    // An LRM is invisible and, in all-Latin text, moves nothing: dropping it
+    // leaves exactly the string the user saw.
+    test("an invisible bidi mark does not hide a known symbol", () => {
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol(LRM + "ETH", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(true);
+    });
+
+    // Invisibility is not confined to \p{Cf}.  A Hangul filler is Lo and a
+    // variation selector is Mn, yet each of these four measures 32.00px in
+    // the repo's pinned e2e Chromium at 16px sans-serif — exactly the width
+    // of a plain `ETH` — so each reaches the user's eye as `ETH`.  They are
+    // caught by \p{Default_Ignorable_Code_Point}, not by \p{Cf}.
+    test("invisible non-format characters are stripped too", () => {
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol(HANGUL_FILLER + "ETH", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(
+            true,
+        );
+        expect(
+            isSpoofedSymbol(CHOSEONG_FILLER + "ETH", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT),
+        ).toBe(true);
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol("ETH" + VS16, FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(true);
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol("E" + VS1 + "TH", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(true);
+    });
+
+    // Nor is it confined to the Unicode classes.  U+007F is a control (Cc)
+    // and is not default-ignorable, so neither class reaches it, but it
+    // measures 32.00px in the same browser — it paints nothing, so a
+    // symbol carrying it reaches the eye as `ETH`.  It is named on its own
+    // in the strip for exactly that reason.
+    test("U+007F paints nothing and is stripped", () => {
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol(DEL + "ETH", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(true);
+    });
+
+    // The other side of the boundary, which is not the class boundary but
+    // the visibility one: the remaining C0 and C1 controls render as a
+    // visible 48.00px box in the same browser, so a symbol carrying one
+    // does not look like `ETH` and must not be judged a spoof.  Widening
+    // the strip to \p{Cc} — the obvious over-correction once U+007F is in
+    // it — fails this test.
+    test("visible control characters do not make a symbol a spoof", () => {
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol(NEL + "ETH", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(false);
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol(cp(0x0001) + "ETH", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(
+            false,
+        );
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol(cp(0x0090) + "ETH", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(
+            false,
+        );
+    });
+
+    test("compatibility forms fold onto the symbol they imitate", () => {
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol(FULLWIDTH_ETH, FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(true);
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol(FULLWIDTH_USDC, FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(true);
+    });
+
+    // The two knowingly open classes, asserted here so that the boundary is
+    // a fact in the suite and not a claim in a PR body.  A Cyrillic capital
+    // Ie is a distinct letter rather than a compatibility variant, so NFKC
+    // leaves it alone; and a right-to-left override reverses the rendering
+    // of what follows it, which dropping the control character does not
+    // undo.  Closing either needs a confusables table or a bidi resolver,
+    // and both are a separate change from this one.
+    test("a Cyrillic homoglyph is knowingly still not caught", () => {
+        expect(
+            isSpoofedSymbol(CYRILLIC_CAPITAL_IE + "TH", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT),
+        ).toBe(false);
+    });
+
+    test("a bidi-reordered symbol is knowingly still not caught", () => {
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol(RLO + "HTE", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(false);
+    });
+
+    // Normalization does not reach the native-asset exemption, which turns
+    // on the absence of a contract address and never on the symbol.
+    test("a padded symbol with no contract is still not a spoof", () => {
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol(" ETH ", null)).toBe(false);
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol(NBSP + "ETH", "")).toBe(false);
+    });
+
+    test("a genuine contract still bears its own padded symbol", () => {
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol(" USDC ", USDC_CONTRACT)).toBe(false);
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol(ZWSP + "WETH", WETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(false);
+    });
+
+    // Normalization must not invent a match.  Interior ASCII whitespace is
+    // left alone: `E T H` renders as `E T H`, not as `ETH`, so folding it
+    // would filter a token no user could confuse with the native asset.
+    test("a symbol that renders differently is not judged a spoof", () => {
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol("E T H", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(false);
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol("ETH2", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(false);
+        expect(isSpoofedSymbol("MY ETH", FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT)).toBe(false);
+    });
+
+    // The false-positive question, answered against the shipped data rather
+    // than by assertion: no bundled symbol carries whitespace or a
+    // non-ASCII character, so the normalization cannot newly filter one.
+    // The character class starts at `!` rather than at the space so that it
+    // asserts the claim it stands for — `[ -~]` would admit an interior
+    // space and let a whitespace-bearing entry through the guard.
+    test("no bundled symbol is touched by the normalization", () => {
+        for (const [symbol, address] of KNOWN_SYMBOLS) {
+            expect(symbol).toBe(symbol.trim());
+            expect(symbol).toMatch(/^[!-~]+$/);
+            if (address === null) continue;
+            expect(isSpoofedSymbol(symbol, address)).toBe(false);
+        }
+    });
+});
+
 describe("surface 1: the transaction history", () => {
     function fakeEthTransfer() {
         return {
@@ -147,6 +316,22 @@ describe("surface 1: the transaction history", () => {
         expect(result.transactions).toEqual([]);
     });
 
+    // Issue #260 on this surface: the same transfer with a padded symbol.
+    test("a padded fake ETH token transfer is filtered too", () => {
+        const padded = { ...fakeEthTransfer(), symbol: " ETH " };
+        const result = filterTransactions([padded], {
+            hideSpoofedSymbols: true,
+            hideFraudContracts: true,
+            hideLowHolderTokens: true,
+            hideDustTransactions: true,
+            dustThresholdGwei: 100000,
+        });
+        expect(result.transactions).toEqual([]);
+        // The contract is learned as fraudulent, exactly as for the
+        // unpadded symbol: the padding must not cost the blocklist entry.
+        expect(result.newFraudContracts).toEqual([FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT]);
+    });
+
     test("a real native ETH transfer survives", () => {
         const native = {
             hash: "0x" + "2".repeat(64),
@@ -201,6 +386,36 @@ describe("surface 2: the Send token selector", () => {
         expect(select.children).toEqual([]);
     });
 
+    // Issue #260 on this surface: the option text is rendered into HTML,
+    // which collapses the padding, so an unfiltered padded token would sit
+    // in the selector reading exactly `ETH`.
+    test("a padded fake ETH token is not selectable either", () => {
+        render([
+            {
+                address: FAKE_ETH_CONTRACT,
+                symbol: " ETH ",
+                decimals: 18,
+                balance: "0.005",
+                holders: 900000,
+            },
+        ]);
+        expect(select.children).toEqual([]);
+    });
+
+    test("a genuine token with a padded symbol stays selectable", () => {
+        render([
+            {
+                address: USDC_CONTRACT,
+                symbol: " USDC ",
+                decimals: 6,
+                balance: "12.5",
+                holders: 900000,
+            },
+        ]);
+        expect(select.children).toHaveLength(1);
+        expect(select.children[0].value).toBe(USDC_CONTRACT);
+    });
+
     test("native ETH remains the always-present option", () => {
         render([]);
         expect(select.innerHTML).toBe('<option value="ETH">ETH</option>');
@@ -251,6 +466,35 @@ describe("surface 3: the balance list", () => {
         expect(balances).toEqual([]);
     });
 
+    // Issue #260 on this surface: the balance list is where the user forms
+    // their belief about what they own, and it renders the symbol into HTML.
+    test("a padded fake ETH token is filtered too", async () => {
+        respondWith([fakeEthItem({ symbol: " ETH " })]);
+        expect(await fetchTokenBalances(HOLDER, BLOCKSCOUT, [])).toEqual([]);
+    });
+
+    test("a fake ETH token padded with a no-break space is filtered", async () => {
+        respondWith([fakeEthItem({ symbol: NBSP + "ETH" + NBSP })]);
+        expect(await fetchTokenBalances(HOLDER, BLOCKSCOUT, [])).toEqual([]);
+    });
+
+    // The false-positive direction on the surface that matters most: a real
+    // holding whose symbol happens to carry padding is still listed, and the
+    // list still shows the symbol the token actually reports.
+    test("a genuine token with a padded symbol is not newly filtered", async () => {
+        respondWith([
+            fakeEthItem({
+                address_hash: USDC_CONTRACT,
+                symbol: " USDC ",
+                name: "USD Coin",
+                decimals: "6",
+            }),
+        ]);
+        const balances = await fetchTokenBalances(HOLDER, BLOCKSCOUT, []);
+        expect(balances).toHaveLength(1);
+        expect(balances[0].symbol).toBe(" USDC ");
+    });
+
     test("a genuine token keeps its place in the list", async () => {
         respondWith([
             fakeEthItem({
@@ -274,6 +518,33 @@ describe("surface 3: the balance list", () => {
         expect(await fetchTokenBalances(HOLDER, BLOCKSCOUT, [])).toEqual([]);
     });
 
+    // The adjacent finding from the same review as issue #260: the type gate
+    // compared exactly, so an explorer that ever varied the casing would
+    // silently drop a real holding before any filter ran.  The comparison is
+    // now case-insensitive, which changes nothing about which types are
+    // admitted.
+    test("a differently-cased ERC-20 type still lists a real holding", async () => {
+        respondWith([
+            fakeEthItem({
+                type: "erc-20",
+                address_hash: USDC_CONTRACT,
+                symbol: "USDC",
+                name: "USD Coin",
+                decimals: "6",
+            }),
+        ]);
+        const balances = await fetchTokenBalances(HOLDER, BLOCKSCOUT, []);
+        expect(balances).toHaveLength(1);
+        expect(balances[0].symbol).toBe("USDC");
+    });
+
+    test("case insensitivity does not admit another token type", async () => {
+        respondWith([fakeEthItem({ type: "erc-721" })]);
+        expect(await fetchTokenBalances(HOLDER, BLOCKSCOUT, [])).toEqual([]);
+        respondWith([fakeEthItem({ type: "ERC-20-EXTRA" })]);
+        expect(await fetchTokenBalances(HOLDER, BLOCKSCOUT, [])).toEqual([]);
+    });
+
     // The money test: the user holds real ETH and has been airdropped a fake
     // ETH ERC-20.  The fake is gone from the list of tokens; the real balance
     // is exactly what the node reported.