Re: netscape mail starts java attachments upon get new mail...

[Simon Spero <ses@tipper.oit.unc.edu>]

On Mon, 9 Oct 1995, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> 
> "Josh M. Osborne" writes:
> > As far as I know Java apps can only make network connections to the
> > IP address they were loaded from.
> 
> That might be the design, but we know that it is hard to faithfully
> implement very complicated designs.
> 

The design of java is supposed to make analysing for security easier than 
it might be in other similarly sized systems- whether it does this or not 
is something that needs to be checked for carefully. 

The three components that need to be analysed are the class loader, the 
implementation of the JVM, and the code to check network connections. 

Analysing the VM and the class loader should be a simple (hah) matter of 
structural induction (possibly a two step process of converting the vm 
description into a denotational semantics and analysing that, followed by a 
proof that the vm is a faithful implemenation of those semantics.)

the networking code is simple  to prove safe if the VM and classloader 
can be shown to be safe.

Simon