RE: Securing ActiveX.

[Ray Arachelian <sunder@brainlink.com>]

On Tue, 17 Dec 1996, Blake Coverett wrote:

> It's not a Java vs ActiveX thing for me at all.  What is important is that
> some of the applets I write can't function in a sandbox, they need access
> to the disk and other resources for business reasons.  For this type of
> thing signed code without a sandbox is the only choice.

Sure they can.  Get a file system that honors security and limit that 
applet's access to certain directories only where the data it needs 
lives.  Do not give it access to everything.  A sandbox will allow this.
 
> What I'd really like is the sort of thing Bill Frantz is describing on 
> another branch of this thread.  Signed code and an administrator 
> defined policy that specified for a given signature exactly what 
> types of resources should be accessible.  Anything from don't
> execute and audit a security alarm to complete access to the
> whole machine.

Same difference whether you use the signature or some other thing to 
grant or revoke access to certain resources.  Though if you use a 
signature as in the author who wrote it as opposed to something like a 
CRC which is unique for every control - then you are opening a wider hole 
than you want.  With apps like that you want to set security perms for 
each application, not all applications that were written by Macrosoft. :)
  
> > How many users know how to download the jdk and run the java vm locally?  
> 
> They don't need to.  All they need to do is unzip the java classes into their 
> classpath and all of the normal restrictions on an applet are ignored.  
> Think it would be very hard to persuade a user to do just that in order
> to play a kewl java game?  More importantly it shows that even expert
> users don't always know where the holes in the sandbox are.

Fine - how many game users who how to unzip the java classes into their 
classpath?  Question is of knowledge not of what action they will take.

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