On Tue, 30 Jul 1996, Ray Kaplan wrote:
> > Java Security? What security? You either trust the VM or you don't,
Java is bad, methinks active X may be worse.
> Indeed, however, considering that there is currently no authentication,
> this is almost a no op. Discounting bugs in the particular client VM,
> there is an open question: can you trust the applet itself. Nope, not
> by definition. Hop on over to one of the many "malicious" applet
> providing sites and see how well your netscape gets hammered (via Java
> and HTML) for a demonstration of this. In my perfect world (which seems
> to be where Sun and other are going), you'd sign your applet and it's
> end user would make the decision to trust you (or not, as it were.)
I for one, don't find this to be a "perfect world". It's bad enough
getting my users to understand how to select a secure password, and
that you shouldn't write it on a sticky note pasted to the monitor. Now
I'm supposed to explain to them the variances of extending trust?
> I've a model for "applet brokering" which includes the usual digital
> signatures for authentication / integrity, AND some other stuff that is
> pretty ugly. Consider that you'll need *someone* to guarentee that the
> applet is safe *and* someone to ensure that the client won't allow abuse.
> A pretty big mess, me thinks. Although, maybe we'll see a few more
> millionaires as companies are formed to tackle these tough jobs ;)
>
Methinks "applet scanners" could become a buzzword.
> > Problem with malicious applets is, assuming
> > they are able to break out of the VM, that they can attack the hosts
> > you thought were secure, because they run from inside your Firewall.
Which menas they shouldn't be able to break out of the VM. Not a simple
task, but certainly not unattainable.
>
> Yep, but consider that this implies an interesting and very onerous
> (impossible?) responsibility for every PC on the net? Whoooa. Sounds
Worse, with signed applets and the like, it starts to place the
implementation of security policy on the end-user. This is Not a Good
Thing [tm].
> of a chosen security policy. And, finally, the really tough nut - it would
> be great if the policy could be mapped seamlessly into that of the security
> domain which provided the applet (for purposes of access control and
> authorization...) IMHO, very few firewalls even can do that stuff today.
This is starting to become essential.
Paul
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Paul D. Robertson "My statements in this message are personal opinions
proberts @
clark .
net which may have no basis whatsoever in fact."
PSB#9280
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