What you're describing is possibly the most complicated way ever to watch an online video.
You do realize that there are free and open source Flash player codebases, right? Also, the file format for Flash Video (FLV) is a known format. Once you start taking apart the FLV file, you will quickly see that the audio format (mp3) and video packets (mpeg4 with h.264 or vp6 encoding) are known formats that are supported by open source software. I use the "mplayer" program, and this is what's printed on the console when I play a FLV file: Playing sample1.flv. libavformat file format detected. [lavf] Video stream found, -vid 0 [lavf] Audio stream found, -aid 1 VIDEO: [VP6F] 368x272 0bpp 29.970 fps 0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s) ==================================================================== Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family Selected video codec: [ffvp6f] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg VP6 Flash decoder) ==================================================================== Forced audio codec: mad Opening audio decoder: [libmad] libmad mpeg audio decoder AUDIO: 22050 Hz, 1 ch, s16le, 48.0 kbit/13.61% (ratio: 6000->44100) Selected audio codec: [mad] afm: libmad (libMAD MPEG layer 1-2-3) ==================================================================== Starting playback... So, it seems ridiculously easy to play a flash video file with open source software, but if you want to write a custom operating system that sets flags on processes that don't come with source code - you could do that too. Michael Sokolov wrote: > Dante Lanznaster <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Believe me, you'll want a x86 platform to run youtube videos... (it needs >> the flash plugin) >> >> FLASH! you know, that one from Adobe! > > I've already figured as much. > > Has anyone already come up with a mechanism to run these f***ing closed > source binary plugins in some kind of severely restricted "jail" > environment where the untrusted code is blocked from accessing any > system resources which aren't on a pre-approved list? I'm thinking > along the lines of something like this: a process makes a special system > call which tells the kernel "I'm about to run untrusted binary code for > which we have no source", and from that point on the kernel sets some > special flag marking the process as untrusted. The untrusted process is > then prohibited from using any system calls which aren't on a > pre-approved list, from accessing any files outside a pre-approved list, > and from accessing any network resources outside of another pre-approved > list. Has anyone already created something like this, or am I going to > have to hire someone with NSA-level security experience to custom-design > it for me from scratch? > > Developing this idea further, if I want to treat all closed source > binary x86 code as untrusted and dangerous (which is indeed my security > policy) and run it only in special restricted "jail" environments like > I've described, it probably wouldn't be that much extra effort to make > this "jail" environment in the form of a software-based x86 instruction > set emulator running on a machine whose native architecture could be > completely different... > > MS > _______________________________________________ > LinuxUsers mailing list > [email protected] > http://socallinux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linuxusers
