RE: JAVA

[Michael Dillon <michael @ memra . com>]

On Wed, 27 Mar 1996, Russ wrote:

> The Microsoft API provides a means for a site to determine a set of rules, 
> in a similar fashion to how rules are established for Firewalls. As with a 
> Firewall, the "deny all but..." scenario can be implemented using the 
> Microsoft spec. Therefore, rather than saying that all Java applets are 
> untrustworthy, a site could, if it wanted to, say that these particular 
> signatures are trusted and only these signatures. You could explicitly deny 
> signatures from Microsoft, but allow signatures from Next, if that's what 
> your heart desired.

> IMO, this is the foundation that is required to get to widespread 
> distributed object use across the Internet.

Nope. It's the way to ensure that widespread distributed objects never 
get used on the Internet because all the network admins will throw up 
their hands, their eyes will glaze over as they scream "Not another
complex config file, aaaarrrrggghhh!". Then they will realize that
"deny all" isn't that complex and go back to building their intranet apps.

At least that's what would happen if JAVA and Safe-TCL didn't exist. JAVA 
and Safe-TCL make the configuration quite easy, either on or off, and the 
decision is relatively easy too. It is similar to making a decision to 
trust the firewall vendor you deal with or the cryptography vendor.
You only need to examine one company's background and track record.


Michael Dillon                                    Voice: +1-604-546-8022
Memra Software Inc.                                 Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com                             E-mail: michael @
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 com